Not My Will and The Light in My Window (5 page)

“So be it. Eleanor Stewart, for better or worse, you and I are going to take the fatal step!”

On Saturday afternoon they drove to the chapel near their cottage in the woods, and there with the rain pattering softly on the roof, they spoke the sweet solemn old words. For richer, for poorer … in sickness and in health … until death do us part. “Whom therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder,” the minister concluded.

Chad clasped Elanor’s hand, and together they walked out into the forest, just beginning to come alive with springtime, hope, and life. “Whom God hath joined together—forever,” exclaimed Chad.

They had forgotten that God plans our lives.

S
pring vacation. Spring in the woods, with the earth smelling pungently damp and little green shoots pushing through the mold; with the streams running bank full, and the ground springy underfoot; with returning birds busy with nest-building; with new life triumphantly breaking forth on every side.

“Wake up, Len!” said Chad. “Let’s go for a walk before the sun is up. If we hurry we can beat him to the hilltop!”

They scrambled into their clothes and raced through the woods. The sun was just peeping over the line of hills on the horizon. Silhouetted against the crimson light, the church tower looked large and dark, and the red glow through the belfry caught Chad’s fancy.

“God’s light, through His church,” he whispered.

Eleanor was awed. But the beauty had not reminded her of God. She leaned against Chad and looked up at
his bare head, the spring wind rushing his hair, his eyes shining as he watched the ascending sun. In later years Eleanor would linger long over this portrait in her Picture Gallery.

Back to the cabin they raced and dropped laughing and breathless on the steps. As Eleanor began to pin up her hair, Chad said, “It’s too cool to be without a fire. I’ll get that axe I impressed you with last winter and cut some wood while you scramble some eggs for breakfast.”

“While I scramble some eggs, did you say?” she asked.

“Certainly. Didn’t we bring some?”

“Yes,” she said doubtfully. “I guess we did. But, Chad, I can’t scramble eggs.”

“Can’t scramble eggs? Well, where’ve you been all your life? What did you eat while you were there?”

“I’ve eaten scrambled eggs lots of times, but I never cooked any.”

“Couldn’t you just look at them and guess how?” Chad teased.

“No. I don’t even know how to get the crazy things open.”

Chad threw back his head and laughed so loudly that a stray hound sneaking out from under the porch drew back in alarm. Eleanor’s cheeks flushed.

“Is that so funny?” she asked in annoyance. “Did all your other girls know how to cook?”

“Why, certainly. I thought women were born knowing how to scramble eggs. Say, you aren’t peeved, are you?” Chad looked tenderly into the pretty, pouting face.

“I don’t like to appear incompetent,” Eleanor said quickly. “I’m sure there are some things I can do.”

“Sure there are. You’re the cleverest little germ isolator I know.” Chad patted her head consolingly. “But it so happens I want eggs for breakfast, not germs.”

Eleanor jumped up, smiling again. “I can learn to scramble an egg just as well as any of your other girls ever could.”

Chad arose, too, and drew her close as he laughed softly. “Bless your jealous little heart! I never had any other girl in my life. The only women I have ever loved were my mother and Connie and Mary Lou. And you don’t have to scramble eggs. I can do it well enough for both of us.”

“No, sir, you shan’t do the cooking in this family. If I can get a germ under the slide, I can get an egg into the pan. To the kitchen—ready, march!”

She tied on an apron, and Chad slipped into one, too, “just in case you miss your aim.” Then he said, “Lovely lady, I’m sorry if I hurt you with my teasing. Bob and I have always teased Connie and Mary Lou, and I just do it without thinking. Don’t you really like it?”

Eleanor smiled ruefully. “I guess I don’t like being reminded of my ignorance. And I never had anyone to tease me before. I’ll have to get used to it, won’t I?”

“In a month you’ll love it,” Chad assured her. “Now, as for the eggs, I could do this for you, but instead I shall lend my moral support.”

The first egg broke all over the table. The second ran through Eleanor’s fingers to the floor. The third broke into the bowl properly. But by the time there were four eggs in the bowl, there were three on the floor and table.

“How shall we ever clean up this mess?” asked Eleanor in dismay.

“Easy,” responded Chad promptly. He went to the door and whistled, and the hound came loping up the steps and into the kitchen. In a few minutes he had departed, leaving behind only clean egg shells.

“As for the floor,” Chad promised, “I shall scrub it with my own little hands.”

Never again in her life did Eleanor break eggs into a bowl without remembering Chad leaning his elbows on the table and saying, “Not too fast there. And not too rough. Eggs are like women—handle them gently, but firmly.”

That evening they sat side by side before the crackling fire of pine knots in the big living room. Eleanor had found a basket of pine cones in the store room, and now, as she threw them on the fire one by one, she began to talk to Chad of the difficult hours she had spent here before Aunt Ruth’s death. He drew her closer as he realized how lonely her life had been and how many of the joyous experiences of youth she had been denied. He had long ago discovered deep within her the possibilities of a wonderful womanhood, and her capacity for love humbled him, knowing it was all poured out on himself. Restrained with others, she talked freely to him, and as he sat and watched her, he wondered what sort of woman she would have been, given a normal childhood.

“A penny for your thoughts.” She smiled, brushing her hands on her skirt after emptying the basket.

“That’s a small sum for such priceless thoughts. However, I’ll
give
them to you. Believe it or not, I was thinking of you and wishing I could take you home and show you off to my folks. Let’s do it, Len!” he exclaimed impulsively.

“Oh, no,” she cried in panic. “I can’t, really, Chad. You wouldn’t want to do that, would you? Some day I’ll be proud and happy to go home as your wife. But not until I’m done with Professor Nichols’s work. He’d not like it at all. Oh, you won’t tell, will you?”

Chad was surprised at this outburst. “Of course not, if you feel so strongly. I guess we would have tough sledding if you lost out with the Professor. I promised, and I’ll keep my word. But I want to walk in the front door with you and say to them, ‘Look what I found.’ That’s what Bob and Con and I used to say. But none of us ever had such a find as this!”

“What do you suppose they would say?” queried Eleanor. She was glad to get Chad to talking about his family, instead of that dangerous topic.

“Let me see.” Chad pretended a deep study. “Con would bite off her nails in jealous rage. Bob would be sure to break his engagement to Marilyn. Mom would ask if you could milk cows, and when you said, ‘Oh, so that’s where milk comes from!’ she would die of shame on the spot.”

Eleanor’s chin elevated. “I could learn to milk if I wanted to.”

“Of course you could, but if you’re real smart you won’t want to. I shudder to think of the oceans of milk I’ve coaxed from that herd in my day.”

“Aren’t there such things as milking machines?”

“Listen to her!” Chad addressed the leaping flames in the fireplace. “Pretty soon she’ll be telling me the difference between clover and alfalfa.”

After a moment’s silence, during which Chad got his hair pulled for this piece of impertinence, he continued
in a softer tone. “Joking aside, honey, they’d all love you to death. Mom would be happy to think her son had married so well, and you and Con would be chums from the start. Bob is quiet, but he’s a deep one. He and I used to tease Mom by singing a song to her, ‘I want a girl just like the girl that married dear old dad!’ Guess we meant it, for Bob went and proposed to Marilyn, who is very much like Mom, and I often see things about you that remind me of her.”

“Thank you, dear,” Eleanor said seriously. “I don’t know your mother, but I know that’s a real compliment, and I treasure it.”

Chad went on. “There’s one member of the family, though, who will adore you for two reasons. First, because you’re you. Second, because you’re mine. That’s Mary Lou. I’m her special big brother, and all I say and do are just right to her. Poor little girl. You know, she never saw Dad. She was born the night he died. Some day I’ll tell you all about that. It was hard, and I can’t talk much about it yet. But I guess that’s why I feel the way I do about Mary Lou. To have had a dad like ours and never to have known him!”

Eleanor held his hand tightly. When she spoke, her voice was shaky. “I never remember seeing either my mother or father.”

Chad looked down at the bright head and said tenderly, “And you didn’t even have any brothers or sisters to make things easier.”

“No one but Aunt Ruth. She was as sweet as she could be, but I used to want other children so badly.”

“I think every child has a right to a big family,” Chad mused. “I used to say I’d have at least a dozen of
my own, but that was before Dad left us and I found out just what it means to keep them fed and covered with clothes!”

“Just think, Len,” he continued. “Some day we’ll have children of our own. I guess every fellow wants a son, and I certainly do. And I want a cuddly, lovable little girl like Mary Lou. But I’d want her to be like you, too, so I could get acquainted with the little girl I never knew, who grew up to be the big girl I adore!”

Moonlight on the lake. The weather had turned warmer, and as they sat there, Chad sang softly under his breath. Eleanor had noticed that his favorite songs were hymns. Now and then she joined in a hymn she knew, but many of Chad’s songs were new to her—short little choruses, mostly about loving Jesus Christ and serving Him.

“You think a lot about God, don’t you, Chad?” she asked once.

“Not as much as I should, I guess. Out here in the woods with just you and me and the stars, He seems pretty near. When I’m at home with Mom and the others He seems to be sitting right in the parlor with us. But when I get so busy at school, I’m sorry to say I forget Him sometimes. I’m rightly thankful for Christian parents and for the training I got. I am a Christian, even though I don’t talk much about it. But college has changed some of my ideas and mixed me up on others. When I get through school and have time, I’ll have to clean up my spiritual life like Mom cleans up her darning basket. I’ll sort out all the ideas and mend the holes and put everything in order.”

Eleanor had listened with interest and now she ex-
claimed, “Well, I never could make God seem real. Aunt Ruth never let me miss a Sunday at church, but I invented a game. I locked my ears tight against what the preacher said, and as I look back now I can’t remember a single word I ever heard.”

“Aren’t you a Christian, Len?” Chad asked soberly, with disappointment in his voice.

“Yes, I guess so. In my heart I believe that Christ died for sinners. But all the ideas that used to satisfy me seem to be so obsolete on the campus. And, anyway, I have found out that to succeed in any really big work you have to give your whole heart and mind to it. I believe that the work we have chosen to do will be of immeasurable benefit to the world. That is a religion in itself. And it leaves not much time for going around saving souls or things like that.”

“Bob and Con both take their religion more seriously than I do,” Chad remarked. “They were just born good. Bob has a class of boys at Sunday school that is the talk of the town. Con speaks well and is always being elected president of something or other. She and Bob sing beautifully and often are invited to help at meetings in other places.”

“Didn’t you ever sing with them?”

“Not by invitation.” He laughed. “They don’t think much of my ability. When Mary Lou and I want to sing, we go to the woods.”

“I like to hear you,” Eleanor insisted loyally. “And I like those choruses.”

“You’re prejudiced, Mrs. Stewart. By the way, I like that name.”

“So do I. It means the only real happiness I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Are you happy now, Len?” Chad asked in a low tone.

“So much it hurts.”

“God willing, dear,” he said with a kiss, “I’ll keep you that way.”

* * *

Rain was falling in sheets on the shingle roof. Eleanor and Chad were on the floor before the big bookcases, looking through old books covered with the dust of years.

“Listen to this, Eleanor,” Chad said suddenly. “When I was in high school, we studied
Lady of the Lake,
and last night when you stood for a moment on the hill above the lake, I thought of that, and I just now found this description of Ellen—

“It fit you so well that I decided you were Ellen, my Lady of the Lake.”