A Charmed Life by Richard Harding Davis She loved him so,that when he went away to a little war in which his country was interested she could not understand,nor quite forgive.
As the correspondent of a newspaper,Chesterton had looked on at other wars;when the yellow races met,when the infidel Turk spanked the Christian Greek;and one he had watched from inside a British square,where he was greatly alarmed lest he should be trampled upon by terrified camels.This had happened before he and she had met.After they met,she told him that what chances he had chosen to take before he came into her life fell outside of her jurisdiction.But now that his life belonged to her,this talk of his standing up to be shot at was wicked.It was worse than wicked;it was absurd.
When the Maine sank in Havana harbor and the word "war"was appearing hourly in hysterical extras,Miss Armitage explained her position.
"You mustn't think,"she said,"that I am one of those silly girls who would beg you not to go to war."
At the moment of speaking her cheek happened to be resting against his,and his arm was about her,so he humbly bent his head and kissed her,and whispered very proudly and softly,"No,dearest."
At which she withdrew from him frowning.
"No!I'm not a bit like those girls,"she proclaimed."I merely tell you YOU CAN'T GO!My gracious!"she cried,helplessly.She knew the words fell short of expressing her distress,but her education had not supplied her with exclamations of greater violence.
"My goodness!"she cried."How can you frighten me so?It's not like you,"she reproached him."You are so unselfish,so noble.
You are always thinking of other people.How can you talk of going to war--to be killed--to me?And now,now that you have made me love you so?"
The hands,that when she talked seemed to him like swallows darting and flashing in the sunlight,clutched his sleeve.The fingers,that he would rather kiss than the lips of any other woman that ever lived,clung to his arm.Their clasp reminded him of that of a drowning child he had once lifted from the surf.
"If you should die,"whispered Miss Armitage."What would I do.
What would I do!"
"But my dearest,"cried the young man."My dearest ONE!I've GOT to go.It's our own war.Everybody else will go,"he pleaded.
"Every man you know,and they're going to fight,too.I'm going only to look on.That's bad enough,isn't it,without sitting at home?You should be sorry I'm not going to fight."
"Sorry!"exclaimed the girl."If you love me--"
"If I love you,"shouted the young man.His voice suggested that he was about to shake her."How dare you?"
She abandoned that position and attacked from one more logical.
"But why punish me?"she protested."Do I want the war?Do I want to free Cuba?No!I want YOU,and if you go,you are the one who is sure to be killed.You are so big--and so brave,and you will be rushing in wherever the fighting is,and then--then you will die."She raised her eyes and looked at him as though seeing him from a great distance."And,"she added fatefully,"I will die,too,or maybe I will have to live,to live without you for years,for many miserable years."
Fearfully,with great caution,as though in his joy in her he might crush her in his hands,the young man drew her to him and held her close.After a silence he whispered."But,you know that nothing can happen to me.Not now,that God has let me love you.He could not be so cruel.He would not have given me such happiness to take it from me.A man who loves you,as I love you,cannot come to any harm.And the man YOU love is immortal,immune.He holds a charmed life.So long as you love him,he must live."
The eyes of the girl smiled up at him through her tears.She lifted her lips to his."Then you will never die!"she said.
She held him away from her."Listen!"she whispered."What you say is true.It must be true,because you are always right.I love you so that nothing can harm you.My love will be a charm.
It will hang around your neck and protect you,and keep you,and bring you back to me.When you are in danger my love will save you.For,while it lives,I live.When it dies--"
Chesterton kissed her quickly.
"What happens then,"he said,"doesn't matter."
The war game had run its happy-go-lucky course briefly and brilliantly,with "glory enough for all,"even for Chesterton.
For,in no previous campaign had good fortune so persistently stood smiling at his elbow.At each moment of the war that was critical,picturesque,dramatic,by some lucky accident he found himself among those present.He could not lose.Even when his press boat broke down at Cardenas,a Yankee cruiser and two Spanish gun-boats,apparently for his sole benefit,engaged in an impromptu duel within range of his megaphone.When his horse went lame,the column with which he had wished to advance,passed forward to the front unmolested,while the rear guard,to which he had been forced to join his fortune,fought its way through the stifling underbrush.
Between his news despatches,when he was not singing the praises of his fellow-countrymen,or copying lists of their killed and wounded,he wrote to Miss Armitage.His letters were scrawled on yellow copy paper and consisted of repetitions of the three words,"I love you,"rearranged,illuminated,and intensified.
Each letter began much in the same way."The war is still going on.You can read about it in the papers.What I want you to know is that I love you as no man ever--"And so on for many pages.
From her only one of the letters she wrote reached him.It was picked up in the sand at Siboney after the medical corps,in an effort to wipe out the yellow-fever,had set fire to the post-office tent.
She had written it some weeks before from her summer home at Newport,and in it she said:"When you went to the front,I thought no woman could love more than I did then.But,now I know.At least I know one girl who can.She cannot write it.She can never tell you.You must just believe.