The Red Cross Girls in Belgium

by Margaret Vandercook

But it was true that she had been greatly influenced by the possible romance and adventure in her decision to help with the Red Cross work in Europe. This did not mean that Nona was not tremendously in earnest. But she was a girl who had read a great deal and dreamed many dreams. All her life poetry and passion would appeal to her more than cold arrangements of facts. There was no fault in this, it was merely a matter of temperament. Perhaps it was partly responsible for the soft light in Nona's brown eyes with their curiously golden iris. Also she had a fashion of opening her lips slightly when she was specially interested in a subject, as if she wished to breathe in the essence of the idea.

A part of Nona's dreaming was due to the fact that she had never known her mother after she was a small girl. More than this, she had been brought up in such curious ignorance of her mother's history. Any child in the world must have dreamed strange dreams under like circumstances.

Often Nona used to have a vision of her mother coming to stand at her bedside. Always she appeared dressed in the white muslin and blue ribbons, in which she remembered seeing her on a special Sunday afternoon.

Moreover, there was always the question of her mother's family to be pondered over. Naturally Nona believed that her mother must have been a great lady. Her imagination even went so far as to conceive of her as a foreign princess, who for reasons of state had been suddenly carried off to her own land.

Until she grew old enough to laugh at herself, Nona often sat with her delicate little nose pressed against the window pane in the drawing room of her old Charleston home. If questions were asked she could invent many reasons to explain her presence. She was actually waiting for a splendid coach and four to drive up to the door and bear her away. The coach was always decorated with a splendid coat of arms, and for some absurd childish reason the coachman and footmen were dressed in pumpkin-colored satin and wore tall black top hats.

As a matter of fact, as Nona Davis grew older these ridiculous fancies faded; nevertheless, a few of her old dreams remained. For one thing, she retained the impression that her mother had probably been a foreigner. Yet she never could understand why, even after her father's death, his few old friends continued to decline to give her any information. Surely one of them must know something of her mother.

It was all too mysterious and disheartening. On coming to Europe, Nona had made up her mind to put the trying mystery back of her and to forget it as completely as she could. In a measure she had succeeded, but since her confession to the Red Cross girls the old haunting desire had come back to her. She must find out whether her mother was dead or living and in either case why she had been told nothing of her.

Then suddenly one day, without knowing why, she chose Dick Thornton for a confidant. More than this, she asked for his advice. Whatever the mystery, it was her right to be told the exact truth, she insisted, and Dick agreed with her.

This was on one of the occasions when they were walking together out from Brussels in the direction of the sea. They were not allowed to travel very far, since the roads were all patrolled by German soldiers in command of the fortifications along the way.