Molly Brown of Kentucky

Could this be the gay and volatile Marquise, this sad looking, middle-aged woman? She had grown almost thin during those few months of the war. Her beautiful Titian hair was now streaked with grey. Judy remembered with a choking feeling the first time she had come to the Ochtè home on that night soon after Molly and her mother had arrived in Paris, when they had dined in the Faubourg and then gone to hear Louise at the Opera. The Marquise had been radiant in black velvet and diamonds, a beautiful, gay woman that one could hardly believe to be the mother of Philippe. She had looked so young, so sparkling. She had said at one time that she allowed no grey hairs to stay in her head, but had her maid pull them out no matter how it hurt. Now it would take all a maid’s time to keep down the grey hairs in that head, and would leave but a scant supply for a coiffure could they be extracted.

Kent thought she looked more like his mother and loved her for it. Her greeting was very warm and her interest great in what Judy and Kent had been doing and what they meant to do. She received them in the great salon that had been converted into a hospital ward. All of the Louis Quinze furniture had been stored away in an upper chamber and now in its place were long rows of cots. The floor was bare of the handsome rugs which had been the delight and envy of Judy on former visits, and now the parquetted boards were frotted to a point of cleanliness that no germ would have dared to violate.

“I left the pictures for the poor fellows to look at – that is, those who are spared their eyesight,” she said sadly. “My hospital opens to-morrow, but I want the privilege of giving a wedding breakfast to you young people. I can well manage it in the small salle à manger. That is left as it was.”

“Oh, you are so kind, but dear old Mère Tricot is making a great cake for us and she would be sad indeed if she could not give the breakfast,” explained Judy.

“That is as it should be,” said the Marquise kindly, “but am I invited?”

“Invited! Of course you are invited, and the Marquis and Philippe if they can be got hold of.”

“They are still in camp and have not gone to the fore, so I will manage to reach them. Jean is very busy, drilling all the time, but a family wedding must be attended. Philippe is learning to fly,” and she closed her eyes a moment as though to shut out the remembrance of accidents that happen all the time to the daring aviators.

Judy wondered if he had come in contact with Josephine Perkins, but said nothing as it was a deep secret that Jo was passing off as a man and a word might give her away.

“There are many Americans in the aviation camp, and very clever and apt they are, Philippe says. I am proud of my countrymen for coming forward as they are.”

“Yes, I think it is great for them to. I – I – think I ought not to marry Kent and go off and leave so much work to be done. I ought to help. Don’t you think so, Cousin Sally?” asked Judy.

The Marquise smiled at Judy’s calling her cousin, smiled and liked it. Kent looked uneasy and a little sullen. Suppose his Judy should balk at the last minute and refuse to leave the stirring scenes of war! What then? He had sworn not to return to United States without her, and unless he did return in a very short time, the very good job he had picked up in New York would be filled by some more fortunate and less in love young architect.

“Why, my dear, it is not the duty of all American girls to stay on this side and nurse any more than it is the duty of all American men to stay here and fight. Only those must do it who are called, as it were, by the spirit. You must marry my young cousin and go back to United States, and there your duty will begin, not only to make him the brave, fine wife that I know it is in you to make, but also to remember suffering France and Belgium. There is much work waiting for you. This war will last for years, thanks to that same Belgium who threw herself in the breach and stopped the tide of Prussians flowing into France. If it had not been for Belgium, the war would have been over now – yes, over – but France would have been under the heel of the tyrant and Belgium off of the map. Thank God for that brave little country!” and Judy and Kent bowed their heads as at a benediction.

Kent kissed the Marquise for her sensible advice. He very well knew that Judy would have been a great acquisition to his cousin’s hospital, and that workers were not numerous (not so plentiful at the beginning of the war as they were later). Her advice was certainly unselfish. He thanked her, also, for realizing that it was not up to all American men to stay and fight. He had no desire to fight any one unless his own country was at war, and then he felt he would do his duty as his ancestors had done before him.

“I tell you what we’ll do, you children and I: I’ll order out the car – I still keep one and a chauffeur so that with it I can bring the wounded back to Paris – and we will go out to the aviation camp and see Philippe and ask him to the wedding. You would like to see the camp, eh?”

“Above all things!” exclaimed Kent and Judy in chorus.

The broad grassy field, bordered by houses, sheds and workshops, presented a busy scene as the Ochtè car drove up. Biplanes were parked to one side like so many automobiles at a reception in a city, or buggies at a county seat on court day in an American town. The field was swarming with men, all eagerly watching a tiny speck off in the blue sky in the direction of the trenches where the French had called a halt on the Germans’ insolent and triumphant march to Paris.

No more attempt was made to stop the car of Madame the Marquise from coming into the aviation camp than there would have been had she been Joffre himself.

“They know me very well,” she said in answer to Kent’s inquiry as to this phenomenon, as he well knew they were very strict about visitors in camp. “I am ever a welcome guest here, not only because they know I love them, but because of something I bring.” She pointed to a great hamper of goodies packed in by the chauffeur.

The car was surrounded by eager and courteous young aviators and soldiers, and Kent and Judy well knew it was not all for the gateaux that the Marquise was so beloved. Philippe was summoned and clasped in his mother’s arms. Her heart cried out that every time might be the last.

The Marquise was changed but her son even more so. His dilettantish manner was gone for good, as was also his foppish beard. His face, clean shaven except for a small moustache, was brown and lean; his mouth had taken on purpose; his eyes were no longer merely beautiful but now had depth of expression and a look of pity, as though he had seen much sorrow.

He was greatly pleased to see his cousin Kent and also Miss Kean, who, of course, he thought had gone back to America long ago. He remembered Judy always as the young lady he came so near loving. Indeed, he would have addressed her when Molly Brown had refused him, had he not been made to understand by his fair cousin how important it was to love with one’s whole soul if married happiness was to be expected. He had, after that, gone very slowly in possible courtships. Molly’s friend, Frances Andrews, had almost been his choice, but there was something of fineness lacking in her that deterred him in time, and he was in a measure relieved when that dashing young woman proceeded to marry an impoverished Italian prince. His mother was relieved beyond measure at what she could not but look on as her Philippe’s escape. In fact, she had never seen but one girl she thought would be just right for her beloved son and that was Molly Brown.

Philippe was told of Kent’s being shipwrecked and of Judy’s having taken up her abode with the Tricots. This last bit of information amused him greatly. Judy told with much sprightliness of her serving in the shop and of her learning to make tarts. Philippe began to look upon his cousin Kent as a very lucky dog. He sighed when he promised to come to the wedding breakfast, that is, if he could get leave. Why did all of the charming American girls pass him by?

“J’ai la France et ma mère,” he muttered, as his arm crept around the waist of that beloved mother.

“What are they all looking at so intently?” asked Judy.

“Why, that is a daring young American aviator who has gone to seek some information concerning the trenches of our friends the enemy. He is a strange, quiet little fellow. No one ever gets a word out of him but he has learned to manage his machine quicker than any of the nouveaux, and now is intrusted to carry out all kinds of dangerous orders. He looks like a boy sometimes and sometimes when he is tired, like a strange little old man. He is not very friendly but is quick at repartee and so the fellows let him alone. Speaks French like a Parisian. I have seen him before somewhere, but can’t place him. I asked him once and he was quite stiff and said I had the advantage of him. Of course I didn’t like to force myself on him after that, but I’d really like to be friendly if he would let me. See, here he comes! Look!”

They watched in silence the aeroplane sinking in a lovely spiral glide. As it sank to rest on the greensward, many hands were outstretched to assist the grotesque little figure to alight. Judy recognized in an instant the person she had thought all the time Philippe was describing. It was, of course, Jo Bill Perkins. She was swathed in a dark leather coat and breeches, with a strange shaped cap coming down over her ears. The great goggles she wore could not deceive Judy.

“What is his name?” she asked Philippe.

“Williams is all I know, J. Williams.”

“I believe I know him. Would you mind taking him my card and asking him to come speak to me?”

“Not a bit, but I don’t believe he will come. Let him make his report first, and then I will tell him you are here. You are very charming and fetching, Mademoiselle, but I doubt your being able to bring Williams to your feet.”

CHAPTER XXI.

THE FLIGHT

Judy felt that perhaps she was not quite fair to Jo to test her by this interview, but she did long to speak to her. If Kent and Cousin Sally recognized her, she knew full well she could trust them to keep silent.

Philippe crossed the field and stopped the daring little aviator just after he had made his report to the commander.

“A young lady is asking for you.”

“A young lady for me? Absurd!”

“Yes, she has heard of your wonderful feats and longs to meet you,” teased Philippe; and then added: “Really, Williams, you are superb.”

“Not at all! Well, I am tired and don’t want to meet any young ladies.”

“But this one already knows you,” and Philippe produced Judy’s card.

“Miss Julia Kean,” Jo read in amazement. “How did she get out here, anyhow? Where is she?”

“Over here with my mother,” and Philippe looked with some amusement at the evident blush that spread over Jo’s freckled cheeks. She still had on the grotesque cap and goggles which would have made recognition of her difficult. She wanted very much to see Judy. She wanted to hear something of her Polly, too, and she intended to have Judy look him up if possible, and report to her.

“Will you see her?”

“Sure!”

“Miss Kean is a charming girl, Williams, isn’t she?” said the quizzing Philippe, looking searchingly at his companion as they made their way across the field.

“You bet!” said Jo.

“Have you known her long?”

“Quite a while,” and Jo’s cheeks again were suffused with a dark flush.

“Poor little fellow!” thought Philippe. “I can’t bear to tell him she is to be married. He is such a dare devil the chances are he will be killed before long and he may never have to know that his inamorata has chosen a better looking man, not a better man – they don’t make them to beat little Williams.”

As they approached the car, impulsive Judy jumped out and ran to meet her friend. Jo ran, too, and they embraced with such ardor that Philippe stood back amazed. Maybe Kent Brown was not to be so envied, after all. If the girl who was to marry him in a day was so lavish with her embraces for other men, what kind of wife would she make? Of course, Williams was a rather dried up person, but then a man’s a man for a’ that.

Kent, too, was rather astonished when his fiancée left him with such precipitation and before all the aviation camp hugged and kissed the strange bunchy little figure. Ardor for the heroes of France was all well enough, but a fellow’s sweetheart need not be quite so warm in her manner of showing her appreciation, especially when the fellow happens not to be one himself in the habit of making daily daring flights to spy out the weakness in the trenches of the enemy.

The Marquise laughed as she had not done since the first week in August of that terrible year. Kent looked at her in astonishment. She was not so very much like his mother, after all. His mother would not have been so much amused over the discomfiture of a young lover.

That matron was saying to herself: “How stupid men are!” She had recognized Jo from the beginning. Kent had known in some far off corner of his brain that Mrs. Polly Perkins was doing something or other about the war, but his mind had been so taken up with his own affairs and Judy’s possible danger that that knowledge had stayed in the corner of his brain while the more important matter of getting married was uppermost. Suddenly the truth flashed over him and he was overcome with laughter, too.

“Caught on, eh?” asked his cousin.

He nodded.

“We must keep mum,” she admonished. “There is no reason why a woman should not do her part this way if she can. I’d fly in a minute if that would help any. Of course these stupid men would raise a hue and cry if they knew a woman was carrying off the honours.”

“I am as quiet as the grave,” declared Kent.

Judy came to the car with her friend and with the utmost audacity introduced Jo as Mr. Williams. The Marquise greeted the supposed young man graciously. Kent sprang out and shook Jo warmly by the hand, much to the astonishment of his cousin Philippe.

“Can’t I see you a moment alone?” whispered Jo in Judy’s ear. The Marquise, as though she divined what was in the heart of Mrs. Polly Perkins, asked her to come sit in the car; and then she suggested that Philippe show the camp to Kent and on second thought decided to go with them. The chauffeur had been sent with the hamper to the mess hall, so Judy and Jo had a few minutes alone.

“I must find out something about Polly. I feel as though I could wait no longer for news of him. Can’t you help me?”

“Well, you know I am to be married to-morrow and sail for United States, but I am going to see that news is got to you somehow. Cousin Sally will do it, of course. She is the very person.”

“Oh, but that Philippe must not know. He has already been very curious about where he has seen me before, and I have had to be insufferably rude to him to keep him from prying into my past. I have made good as a man, but still they would not like it, I know.”

“How on earth did you ever get in? I am dying to hear all about it.”

“Well, naturally the examination for physical fitness was worrying me some. I got that little dried up art student named Joel Williams, the one who was always trying to claim kin with me, to take the examination and then let me slip in in his place. I bought his ticket to America to pay him for his trouble. He was broke, as usual, and scared to death when the war started, and willing to do anything to get home. It was really very simple to manage it. I am the same type, in a way, although I hope I am not so dried up as my would-be cousin. Same initials, too, which made the entering rather more regular.”

“Oh, Jo, what a girl you are!”

“Shh! Don’t call me a girl even to yourself. Do you think the Marquise d’Ochtè recognized me?”

“Of course she did and Kent, too! Do you think they would have left us alone if they had not thought you were safe? Kent wouldn’t have left me with such a bird if he had not known who the bird was. He would be afraid I might fly away with you. Oh, Jo, I do so want to fly!”

“Well, why not?”

“Oh, could I really?”

“I think so. I have brought in information to our commander that is valuable enough for me to ask one small favor of him. Come on, let’s ask!”

The two girls were across the field and knocking for admittance at the Commander’s tent before the Marquise and the two young men had begun their tour of inspection.

“A favor to ask!” exclaimed the grizzled old warrior who sat poring over a map where Jo had only a few moments before added some crosses that meant much to the tactics of the French army.

“I want to take a friend up in a machine.”

“A friend! I am sorry, my son, but it is hard to tell friends in this day of war. I can’t let you. He might be no friend, after all, to France.”

“He! It is not a man but an American girl. She is just outside your tent,” and Jo raised the flap and motioned Judy to enter. Judy was introduced. The old warrior looked at her searchingly.

“Tell me, are you related to Robert Kean?”

“His daughter, sir.”

“Robert Kean’s daughter! Why, my child, your father and I have been close friends for years. Tell me where he is and what he is doing.”

So Judy told of her father’s letter and his being held in Berlin because of the knowledge he had of Turkey’s topography. She made him laugh long and loud when she told of the ridiculous limericks he had written on the paper boats.

“And you, Robert Kean’s daughter, want to fly, and to fly with our bravest and most daring aviator! Well, don’t fly off to America with him, – and God bless you, my children,” and he gave Judy a fatherly embrace and went back to his map.

When Kent got back to the car with his cousin, there was no Judy.

“Where can she have gone and where is Williams?”

Philippe looked rather mysterious. Young girls who rushed up and embraced bird men with such ardor should not be allowed too much rope.

“No doubt she will be back soon. Williams is perhaps showing her the camp. Look, there goes another machine up! Two in it! By Jove, it is Williams! I can tell by his way of starting. He has such a smooth getaway always. Could the passenger be Miss Kean?”

“More than likely,” said Kent composedly. “She has always been crazy to fly. I reckon Williams will take good care of her and not go too high or try any stunts.”

“Oh, certainly not!” said Philippe wonderingly. Americans were a riddle to him. He never quite understood his own mother, who had rather a casual idea of proprieties herself at times. That good lady, coming up just then, expressed no concern over the impropriety of Judy’s flying with a man when she was to be married on the morrow to some one else.

Kent sat in the car with his cousin Sally and together they enjoyed Judy’s flight. Jo took her as close to the fighting line as she dared, but she had no idea of endangering the life of her passenger. They dipped and curved, for the most part confining their maneuvers to the vicinity of the camp. Judy never spoke one word, but held her breath and wept for sheer joy.

“To be flying! To be flying! Oh, Judy Kean, you lucky dog!” she said to herself. “All my life I’ve been dreaming I could fly and now I am doing it.”

“Dizzy?” asked Jo.

“No, but happy enough to die,” gasped Judy. “If I wasn’t going to be married, I’d be a bird man.”

When the landing was finally made and Judy stepped out, the world seemed very stale, flat and unprofitable. She was glad Kent was there waiting for her. If she could not be a bird man, she could at least be a very happy war bride. The great leather coat she had worn in her flight was very ugly and unbecoming, and she was thankful for one thing that she did not have to wear such frightful looking clothes all the time.

On the way back to Paris she asked cousin Sally how she had recognized Jo Williams so readily.

“By her feet, of course! Why, no man on earth ever had such eternally feminine feet.” That good lady promised to find out immediately something about Polly and let his spunky wife know where and how he was. “She will have the Cross of Honour before she gets through, Philippe says.”

“You don’t feel as though it were your duty to tell she is a woman, do you?” asked Judy.

“Duty to tell! Heavens, child! I feel it is my duty to help France in every way I can, and surely to get that girl out of the aviation corps would be a hindrance to la Patrie. I doubt even Philippe’s thinking it his duty to tell, and,” with a twinkle in her eye that the horrors of war could not altogether dim, “Philippe has a very stern idea of his duty. He felt maybe it was his duty to get in a flying machine and go after you and Mr. Williams so he could chaperone you. He felt that the dignity of the family was at stake, – so soon to be the bride of his cousin and flying with another man! Terrible!”

“Why, of course! I never thought of how it looked. There I went and hugged and kissed Jo right before everybody. I bet you a sou this minute Philippe and all the rest of them are feeling sorry for you, Kent.”

“Well, they needn’t be,” declared that young man as he found Judy’s hand under the robe. “I’m satisfied – but I did feel a little funny for half a minute when you went and kissed Jo so warmly. It took me a moment longer to recognize her. Why didn’t you put me on?”

“Put you on? How could I, with all the people around?”

“You promised me once you wouldn’t fly with anybody until you could fly with me. Don’t you remember?”

“Of course I did, you goose! But I didn’t say anybody – I said any man; so you see I didn’t break my promise when I flew with Mrs. Polly Perkins!”

CHAPTER XXII.

THE WEDDING BREAKFAST

When the Marquise d’Ochtè said she would do something, she always did it and did it as well as it could be done. When she undertook to find out where and how Polly Perkins was for the benefit of his spunky wife, she did it and did it immediately. And not only did she find him, but she got a little respite from duty for him and bore him back to Paris where she had already spirited Jo to be present at the wedding breakfast. She had asked a holiday for Jo, too, although the grizzled commander was loathe to let his best aviator off even for a day.

Jo was taken to the converted d’Ochtè mansion and there dressed like a nice, feminine little woman, her hair curled by madame’s maid. A tight velvet toque and a dotted veil completed the transformation and the commander himself would not have recognized his one time prize aviator. All of this masquerade was for the sole purpose of fooling Philippe, who, also, was to be one of the guests at the Tricots’.

Polly was so happy to see his Jo again that it was pathetic to behold, and her pride in him and his bravery was beautiful. Polly was vastly improved. Kent, who had always liked the little man and had insisted that there was much more to him than the other members of the colony could see, was delighted to have his opinion of his friend verified.

The ceremony was a very simple one, performed, not by the magistrate as Mère Tricot had suggested, but at the Protestant Episcopal Church. Polly Perkins gave away the bride, and Jo looked as though she would burst with pride at this honour done her husband. Jim Castleman was best man, and Cousin Sally fell in love with him on the spot.

“He is like the young men of my youth,” she declared, “the young men of Kentucky, I am not saying how many years ago.”

The little living room at the Tricots’ soon after the ceremony was full to overflowing, but every one squeezed in somehow. The old couple were very happy in dispensing hospitality. Their Jean came home for a few hours and their hearts were thankful for this glimpse of their son. Marie beamed with joy and the rosy baby delighted them all by saying, “Pa-pa!” the first word it had ever uttered.

Philippe, looking so handsome that Judy, too, wondered that all the American girls passed him by, fraternized with Jean, the peasant’s son, with that simplicity which characterizes the military of France.

The party was very gay, so gay that it seemed impossible that the Germans were really not more than thirty miles from them. Of course they talked politics, men and women. Old Mère Tricot had her opinions and expressed them, and they listened with respect when she pooh-poohed and bah-bahed the notion that the Nations had gone to war from altruistic motives.