Not My Will and The Light in My Window (43 page)

“You’re a smart girl, and I think we’ll get along fine,” he said with a smile that reminded her sickeningly of another man in another office.

Quickly she jerked away and ran out, not waiting for the elevator, but speeding down the stairs and out onto the street without stopping. She boarded the first car that came, and as it twisted and turned through the streets she sat living through the scene again and again, and feeling her cheeks burn with anger and shame. Hope admitted to herself that probably the man had only meant to be kind, but with the memory of Mr. Skeen and his sickening smirk fresh in her mind she was in no mood for such kindness. The car moved with exasperating slowness. All she wanted now was to get back to the big house on Sherman Street and to stay there. She would be a cook and scrub woman all her days if the Kings would keep her. It was better to do the hardest
menial labor among kind friends than to make a big salary in a office where men felt privileged to “paw over” her, as she had heard a girl express it once. All she wanted of life now was security. The big house shut away behind its high iron fence was so blessedly
safe
.

From that day her attitude toward her work changed. Instead of thinking of it as a temporary thing, it now seemed to be her career. Hope did not intend to enjoy it, for joy of any sort had passed her by, but she would do it well and be worthy of the generous wages the Kings paid her. Grandma Thompson’s lessons in cooking and housekeeping had been thorough and bore valuable fruit. Mrs. King was busy in the Institute office helping with plans for enlargement of the work and was relieved to have someone to whom she could entrust the care of the house.

Hope shopped, cooked, dusted, and cleaned. In the afternoons she raked the lawn and trimmed the bushes and shrubs. Dr. Ben and Billy teased her about this latter task, for her strength and ability at such work amazed and amused them. She did not mind. She was an outdoor girl and had helped Grandpa prune trees and vines often enough to know what she was doing. The exercise she was getting was a welcome sleep inducer. When Hope went to bed after a tussle with stubborn lilac branches she had no strength nor time for morbid memories—she went to sleep.

Not expecting happiness, Hope did not miss it. She was safe and taking care of herself and rejoiced in the fact that she was no longer dependent on those who wanted her only for the work she was able to do. One night as she lay on her cot in the big tower room listening to the murmur of voices from the porch where Dr. and Mrs. King sat resting in the swing and Ben and Billy lounged on the steps, she thought of the prayer she had made in the Union Station on that day weeks ago. God had heard her and sent her here, and she thanked Him for it.

B
illy rose from the steps and reached for her purse with which Dr. Ben was playing.

“Give, Pillshooter,” she demanded. “I have to go home. My parents are talking about establishing a curfew. I’ve been out late too much to suit their ideas as to what is good for little redheads.”

Dr. Ben opened the purse, extracted her keys, then handed her the bag. “I agree with them. I’m taking you home.”

“Well—thanks for telling me. Then I suppose I’ll have to bring
you
home. Bids fair to be an interesting night.”

“I have a dime. I can find a bus that will take my money. So long, folks. See you in the morning.”

Philip and Eleanor King sat silent for many minutes after the noise of the car had died away down the street. It had been a busy day, and the demands upon their strength and grace had been many and varied. Now, it was good to rest here for a while. Chad had been in bed for an hour, and now the light was out in Hope’s room also. The noises of the street seemed muted by the tall hedges about the lawn, and only the creak of the chains of the swing belonged to this place and hour. The thick foliage of the maples shut out the light, and for the moment Sherman Street with its sin and sorrow, dirt and disease, seemed far away.

“Thank God for this house and this big park of a lawn,” said Eleanor at last. “It is a real refuge for tired warriors, isn’t it?”

“And how!—as Clem Riggs would say. There is probably a very dignified and scholarly way to express my appreciation, but Clem’s way suits me tonight. Aren’t human beings—some of them—dumb? I’ve been working at the Institute for eight years, and I’ve looked at this house hundreds of times. I’ve seen in it only a pile of junk that shut the sun off the playground. It seemed a symbol of the futility of man’s pride in material things, and I have wished it might be razed so that we could have a ball ground here. Then along comes Mr. VanMeter and sees in it a home for us and limitless possibilities for the Institute. I’ll warrant that he has all sorts of schemes in his head for its use.”

“It’s a lovely place, and I feel as if I had lived in it always. It just
belongs
to me, somehow. After all the hideous places we considered in trying to get closer to the Institute, this is like an outpost of heaven. I would have welcomed a tiny apartment or an old house with a pocket handkerchief of a lawn behind it. I had my soul all prepared for a big sacrifice, and there has been none at all.”

“It will be a hard place to keep clean, and we may find it a problem for heating.”

“Let’s not cross that bridge yet. If the housekeeping becomes too heavy for Hope, we can get Katie regularly. Their rent has been raised, and she must earn something. With Hope to cook and Katie to clean, what more could we ask?”

“We don’t have to ask, honey. Before we call He answers. He gives so much that I am kept busy trying to contain it. I met Lee Harvey on the campus last week, and when he heard that we were living down here he looked at me as if I were some rare kind of moron. He has the First Church at Belden now, and he probably remembers that I could have had it and took this instead. He thinks, of course, that I am regretting the decision.”

Eleanor laughed as she answered. “Poor Lee! I remember our Sunday at that church. I felt ossified before the service even started. Your sermon was the poorest I ever heard you preach. Later, when you got the call, I knew it was your handsome face and charming personality that attracted them. Certainly it was not that sermon! I was relieved beyond measure when you turned it down.”

“Well, Lee’s ideas and mine are different. He will fit in at Belden. I might have once, but not now. He’s the same Lee who used to be my prize pupil in seminary. I pray the Lord to forgive me for helping to make him what he is. Lee can never understand why I chose this place nor how I can be happy here.”

“He isn’t the only one who wonders. I had a call from the university today. If we want to leave Henderson Institute tomorrow we can go out there. There’s a position open for each of us, and I’d hate to mention the salary. You’d say I’d been reading fairy tales. There’s an eight-room, lake-front apartment that goes with it.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Just what you did when they talked to you. ‘Nothing doing!’ Only in language more suited to university comprehension. I didn’t even bother my busy husband with their request. I turned it down
flat
.”

“They all think we’re crazy—‘crackbrained,’ Lee said. But the folks we really care for understand, don’t they?”

“Oh, yes! Dr. Cortland sheds tears of joy when he talks of it. Billy’s folks are back of us in everything we do. Mother thinks Henderson Institute is the greatest point of interest in the city, and she
knows
the superintendent of the Institute is its first citizen and its foremost preacher.”

“She is a bit prejudiced, I’m afraid.”

“Bless her heart! I’ve been thinking of her all day, wishing I could see her. Whenever I get a problem I want to head for home and Mother.”

“What’s your problem now? Is it your husband or your son?” Philip drew Eleanor closer until her head rested against his shoulder and her curls brushed his cheek. “I have no such wisdom as Mother’s, but I’ll do my best at any little problem which you submit.”

“You’re a dear, and I need your wisdom a dozen times a day. This special problem is Hope. Whatever is the matter with her, Phil?”

“I didn’t know there was anything wrong. As a cook she certainly leaves nothing to be desired. Of course, I’d rather eat my wife’s cooking, but Hope comes in a close second. What do you mean? What seems to be wrong?”

“I wish I knew. She isn’t a happy girl at all—not as young girls should be. She is a willing and capable worker, but she is too quiet and reserved. Only when she and Chad are alone in the garden does she even smile. In the weeks she has been here I have never heard her laugh.”

“Maybe she doesn’t like her work. She appears to be entirely out of the class of the ordinary cook.”

“I thought of that. When she first came she acted at times as if she were almost ashamed of the work. I am sure she has been an office worker. Perhaps some unfortunate experience has upset and embittered her. At first I was afraid she would leave when she found something better, but that restlessness has gone, and she puts all her energy into her work as if it were her one interest in life. Yet, she isn’t happy.”

“How do you know? Maybe she likes being morbid. Some folks do. At least the psychologists say so. I never met one who did.”

“No, she’s not that type. I think she wants to be loved and has no one to love her. She and Chad are chums, and sometimes when she is with him she breaks down and
almost
enjoys herself. I wish I could win her confidence.”

“Is she a real Christian, Len?”

“Yes, I’m sure of that. She has had a definite experience of salvation, for she speaks of it occasionally. She reminds me of the way I used to be. I believed and I had accepted Christ, but I had never even heard of living in Him and living with Him day by day. To one who has been raised in an atmosphere of careless acceptance of God’s love without any real appreciation of it, our mode of life is out-and-out queer. I think Hope is beginning to enjoy our devotional hour and to like to have a part in it. She sits with her eyes fixed on you when you preach on Sundays as if she had never heard such words before. She is growing, I know. Yet she is so
sad
. I wish I could help her.”

“Put her to work for someone else,” says Phil. “Give her a job where she’ll see some of these girls who really have a tough time. Let Katie help more in the house, and use Hope over at the church.”

Eleanor sat up as if the thought had electrified her.

“Oh, that’s what we’ll do! I could use her so—so—oh, she could—Phil, I could hug you for that idea! I am thinking so fast I can’t talk. Can’t you see what we can do? With that big old empty kitchen in this house, and with Hope just dropping down on us this way, and with all the things that can be done here! I can’t wait to start!”

“Start what? And what’s the idea I gave you? I don’t see—”

“Of course you don’t. A man wouldn’t. It’s all in my head—only a bit mixed up at present. But it will shake down into sense after a while. Phil King, we’re going to start cooking classes in this old kitchen, and Hope is going to teach them!”

“Is that
so
! Then who will cook
my
meals?”

“Your wife will. I never intend to give up that privilege permanently to anyone. Maybe Tom and Katie would come and live in the basement apartment and Katie could help all the time. I’m going to shuffle all this jumble of ideas around until I get them in order, and when I get done the Institute will have a household science teacher and you will have a housekeeper-wife again.”

“Suits me. It’s near midnight, Len. Let’s put your ideas in cold storage until morning. Or better yet, let’s go and pray over them. And, while we’re about it, we’ll thank the Lord again for the blessed privilege of working for Him here.”

“And for letting us work
together
,” she said softly. “I never get over the wonder of that. In spite of our willfulness, in spite of all our weaknesses, God uses us and blesses us and gives us so much joy that I feel like singing the doxology all day long.”

H
ope, I’ve a new job for you—a better one,” said Eleanor the next morning, entering the kitchen where Hope was washing dishes. Hope turned quickly and stared at her in dismay, while a wave of color flooded her cheeks.

“A new job? Oh, I hoped I was doing all right here. I am sorry—”

She choked and stopped, and Eleanor hastened to explain.

“You have done well. You’ve been better than anyone could have expected. As Billy would say, ‘You’re really super!’ That’s why I have found a new job for you. Hope—oh, please say yes—will you come over to the Institute and teach cooking and sewing? Or rather will you do the cooking in the old kitchen here? I know you sew beautifully. I saw you working on that blouse last week. You could do a wonderful service among our young girls. They need so much, and we can give them so little! You could even help some of the mothers who want to do better but don’t know how. Won’t you do it, Hope?”

Perplexity and amazement struggled together on Hope’s face. At first she did not seem to comprehend what Eleanor was asking. Then when she did, she seemed unable or unwilling to believe it.

“How could I?” she said at last. “Would I have time to keep things going here and do that too?”

“Oh no. It would take all of your time there. There would be cooking or sewing classes every afternoon after school and
some evenings. There could be some classes for mothers in the daytime. You said the other day that you could type. If you’re even an amateur typist you’re better than Billy. She only does it for us because we’ve no one else, and she hates it.”

Eleanor, whose enthusiasm almost ran away with her when she was dreaming and planning for the Institute, stopped for breath, and Hope interpolated, “But how will you manage? Who will help you here? You can’t do your work at the church and keep up this big barn of a house.”

“Phil and I discussed that until almost midnight. Both of us feel that even Henderson Institute must not disrupt our home life nor cause us to neglect Chad. We are fortunate in living so close to our work. I can run home, care for Chad, and still have much time to help Phil. Katie and Tom Berg can live in the basement apartment, so that Katie can take full charge of the cleaning. Since the cool weather has come my headaches have gone, and I’d love to do the cooking.”