So Lexie went on in high school in peace, with sometimes a really new dress all her own and not one made over from one of Elaine’s. Mrs. Kendall settled down to work harder than ever to save to put her girl through college.
It was about the time that Elaine’s first baby arrived, when Lexie was still in her second year at high school, that she took to writing her stepmother again in high, scrawling letters asking to borrow money. There was always a plausible tale of ill luck and a plea of ill health on her part that made it necessary for her to hire a servant, sometimes two, and she didn’t like to ask Dick for the extra money. He was so sweet and generous to her. “And, Mother,” she added naively, “wasn’t there some money my father left that rightly belongs to me anyway?”
There wasn’t, but the stepmother sent her a small amount of money to help out a little, realizing that it would not be the last time this request would be made. She also told her plainly that her father had left no money at all. His business had failed just before his last illness, and she herself had had to get a job and work hard to make both ends meet ever since.
The next time Elaine wrote she said that she distinctly remembered her father telling her own mother before she died that their child would never be in need, that he had taken care of that and put away a sufficient sum to keep her in comfort for years.
As Elaine was between two and a half and three years old when her own mother died, that seemed a rather fantastic story, but Mrs. Kendall had learned long ago not to expect sane logic nor absolute accuracy from Elaine in her statements, and she had patiently let it go.
Lexie, as she grew older and came to know the state of things fully, was very indignant at the stepsister who had darkened the sunshine in her young life time after time, and one day when she was in her second year of college, she brought the subject out in the open, telling her mother that she thought the time had come to let Elaine understand all that she had done for her through the years and how she had actually gone without necessities to please the girl’s whims. Elaine had a husband now and a home of her own. Perhaps it was only a rented house, but her husband was making enough money to enable her to live comfortably, and Elaine had no right to try and get money from them any longer. Suppose Elaine did have three children, she had two servants to help her now, didn’t she? Elaine would complain of course, she had always done that, and say she was sick and miserable. But she went out a great deal, belonged to bridge clubs and things that cost money and took time and strength. Why should her stepmother have to sacrifice to help out every time Elaine wanted to give a party or buy a new dress? Oh, Lexie was beginning to see things very straight then, and though she was born with a sweet, generous nature, she couldn’t bear to see her dear mother taken advantage of by a selfish girl who was never grateful for anything that was done for her.
But Mrs. Kendall, though she acknowledged that there was a great deal of truth in what her daughter said, told Lexie that she felt an obligation toward Elaine because of a promise she had made Elaine’s father before he died. He had been greatly troubled about Elaine, convinced that he had been to blame for leaving her so long with the old aunt who had spoiled her. He implored his wife to look after her as if she were her own, and she had promised she would. Furthermore she had begged Lexie to try to feel toward Elaine as if she were her own sister, and to be kind and considerate of her needs, even if she, the mother, should be taken away. So with tears Lexie had kissed her mother, and promised, “Of course, Mother dear. I’ll do everything I can for her. If she would only let you alone, though, and not be continually implying that you were using or hiding money of hers.”
Lexie’s mother died during Lexie’s third year of college. Elaine sent a telegram of condolence, and regretted that she could not come East for the funeral because of ill health and lack of funds for the journey.
This ended the pleas for money for the time being, and poor Lexie had to bear her sorrow and the heavy burdens that fell upon her young shoulders alone. Though there was no heartbreak for her in the fact of Elaine’s absence. Elaine had never been a comfortable member of the family to have around.
Elaine sent brief, scant letters that harped continually on her own ill health as well as the amount of work there was connected with a family of children, especially for a sick mother, and one whose social duties were essential for her husband’s business success.
Lexie had been more than usually busy of course, since her mother’s death, and she had taken very little time to reply at length to these scattered letters. Her attention was more than full with her examinations and arranging for a war job after graduation. If she thought of Elaine at all, it was to be thankful that she seemed to have a good husband and was fully occupied in a far corner of the country where she was not likely to appear on the scene.
Lexie had come back during vacation to attend to some business connected with the little home that her mother had left free from debt. She had felt it should be rented, or perhaps sold, though she shrank from giving it up. But she had put away a great many of her small treasures, and arranged everything so that the house could be rented if a tenant appeared. Now she was about to return to her college for the final term. Her train would leave that evening, and her bags were packed and ready. She was about to eat the simple lunch of scrambled eggs, bread and butter, and milk that she had but just prepared and set on the corner of the kitchen table when the doorbell rang and the telegram arrived. The telegram was from Elaine!
Lexie stood in the open doorway shivering in the cold and read it, taking in the full import of each typewritten word and letting them beat in upon her heart like giant blows. Strangely it came to her as she read what her mother before her must have felt whenever Elaine had launched one of her drives for help. Only her mother had never let it be known how she felt. For the sake of the love she bore her husband and the promise she had made at his deathbed, she had borne it all sweetly. And now it was her turn, and her mother had expected her to do the same. But this was appalling! This was more than even Mother would have anticipated.
Then she read the telegram again.
DICK IN THE ARMY FIGHTING OVERSEAS. REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION. PROBABLY DEAD.
I AM COMING HOME WITH THE CHILDREN.
HAVE BEEN QUITE ILL. HAVE ROOMS READY.
AM BRINGING A NURSE. WILL REACH THE CITY FIVE THIRTY P.M. MEET TRAIN WITH COMFORTABLE CAR.
ELAINE
Lexie grew weak all over and, turning, tottered into the house closing the door behind her. She went into the dining room and dropped down into a chair beside that lunch she had not eaten, laying her head down on her folded arms on the corner of the table, her heart crying out in discouragement. Now what was she to do? How like Elaine to spring a thing like this on her without warning. Giving orders as if she were a rich woman! Sending her word at the last minute so that it would be impossible to stop her.
Lexie felt her head and looked at her watch. Could she possibly send a telegram to the train and stop her? Turn her back? Tell her she was about to leave for college? Her own train left at two thirty. There was no other train that night. What if she were to pay no attention to the telegram? Just let Elaine come on with her nurse and her three children and see what she had done! It was time she had a good lesson of course. She simply couldn’t expect her sister to take over the burden of her life this way.
On the other hand, there was her promise to her mother, and in fact, what would Elaine do if she arrived and found no car waiting, no house open, no key to open it?
Well, she had a nurse with her, let them go to a hotel!
But suppose she had no money? Still, she must have some money or she could not have bought her tickets and started. She couldn’t have afforded a nurse. But then, of course, Elaine never bothered about affording anything. She always got what she wanted first and let somebody else worry about paying for it.
But how did Elaine happen to telegraph to her here? Ah! She had not told her sister that she was expecting to go back to
college during the midyear vacation and do a little studying while things were quiet. Elaine expected her to be here in the home of course, during holidays, as she invariably had been previously. If she had carried out her plans and that telegram had been a couple of hours later in arriving, she would have been gone and the telegram would not have found her. What then would have happened to Elaine? Well, why not go and let happen what would happen? Surely Elaine would find some way of taking care of her children. She couldn’t exactly come down upon her at college. She wouldn’t know where she had gone either. Why not go?
It must have been five minutes that Lexie sat with her forehead down upon her folded hands trying to think this thing through. The same old fight that had shadowed all her life thus far! Was it going on to the end for her as it had gone on for her mother? Or should she make a stand now and stop it?
And then would come the thought that Elaine seemed to be in real trouble now, her husband probably dead, herself sick—and very likely she really was! It didn’t take much to make Elaine sick when things didn’t happen her way. And those three children! She couldn’t let them suffer because they happened to have an insufferable mother! She had never seen those three children, but children were always pathetic if they were in trouble! Oh, what should she do?
Here she was ready to leave, just time to eat those cold scrambled eggs that had been so nice and hot when that telegram arrived. Her house was all ready either to close for the present or to rent if a tenant came, her things packed away under lock and key in the attic, and all her arrangements for the rest of the college year made. There was still time to take a taxi to the North Station and get her train before that western train arrived with the onslaught of the enemy, and yet she wasn’t going to have the nerve to do it! She felt it in her heart behind all her indignation and bitter disappointment that she wasn’t going to leave Elaine in a tight spot. She had been brought up a lady, and she couldn’t do it. She had been taught to give even a little more than was asked, and she was going to go on doing it the rest of her life… maybe.
But no! She wouldn’t! She mustn’t! She would just stay long enough to have a showdown with her sister. She would make her understand that there was no money anywhere and the job she had secured was on condition that she had finished her college course. She must do that or her whole life would suffer. She would let Elaine understand that she could not shoulder the burden of her family. She would stay long enough for that. It was what her mother probably should have done, and now it was her duty. She would try to be kind and sympathetic with Elaine in her sorrow, and she would try to help her back to a degree of health, but then she would make her understand that it was only right she should get a job herself and support her children. Yes, she would do that! She would not weaken. She had a right and a responsibility to think of herself and her own career, too. Of course even if she had to help Elaine financially, it was essential that she finish her course and get ready to earn as much as possible for them all. Yes, that was what she would do!
And now, just how should she go about all this? Shouldn’t she begin at once to be firm with Elaine? To let her understand that she couldn’t afford taxis and cars? What ought she to do? Wire the train that Elaine must get a taxi, or just not make any reply at all? And how should she prepare for this unexpected invasion? For, indeed, it seemed to her as she lifted tear-filled eyes and looked about the room, like an invasion of an enemy.
She felt condemned as the thought framed itself into words in her mind, but she had to accept the way she felt about it. And thinking back over the years and her mother’s words from time to time, she knew this was something her mother would have told her she must do as far as was possible. Perhaps it would not turn out to be as bad as it promised. Perhaps it was only for a brief space while Elaine adjusted herself to her circumstances, but whatever it was, it was something that her mother would have expected her to do, something that perhaps God expected her to do.
Not that Lexie had ever thought much about God except in a faraway, general way, but somewhere there was a Power that was commanding her. It was as if there was an ordeal ahead that challenged her. Why? Was it right she should go? It was like a wall of fire before her, through which she must pass, and there was now no longer a question whether she would go. She knew she would. The only thing was to work out just what was the wisest way to do it.
With her eyes shut tight to force back the two tears that persisted in coming into them, Lexie kept her face down and pressed her temples to try and think. Whatever she was going to do for the winter, it was now, today, that she had to settle. She wasn’t going to run away from the message that had come at this last minute. If this was an emergency, and a time of grief—and obviously it was—just common decency required that she do something about it. Therefore she must stay here in the house until Elaine came, and they could talk it out. She must see if her sister was really sick, sicker than she used to be sometimes when she just didn’t want to go places and do things that seemed to be her duty. If she was really sick, of course, Lexie must stay and do something about it until some other arrangement could be made, sometime, somewhere. That could be held in abeyance until Elaine was here.
Next, the house must be put in order to accommodate the oncoming guests, or else there must be some room or rooms hired somewhere to accommodate them. Undoubtedly the home would be the cheapest arrangement, unless it might open the way for Elaine to take too much for granted. But there again she must wait until she knew the exact situation. And last, but by no means the least important, was the matter of transportation from the city for an invalid, or a supposed invalid. But that, too, would have to be accepted as a fact until the contrary was proven. And now she began to see how hard her mother’s way must have been. Must she go to the expense of going down to the city after them? There was much to be done in the house to make it habitable if they were coming here. She would have no time to do it if she went to the city.
What she finally did was to run out to a public telephone and call up the Traveler’s Aid at the city station, asking the representative to meet the train and arrange for whatever way of conveyance she felt was necessary, giving a message that she was unable to meet the train herself. She made it plain that none of them had much money to spend for anything that was not a necessity, and unless the invalid felt she could afford taxis, and was utterly unable to travel otherwise, please make some other arrangement.
The woman who answered her call was a sensible person with a voice of understanding and seemed to take in the situation thoroughly. When Lexie came out of the telephone booth there was a relieved feeling in her mind and less trouble in her eyes. At least she had provided a way of transportation, and that matter was disposed of without her having to go into the city. Now she would be able to get a bed ready for Elaine. Even if she wasn’t going to stay in the house all night, there would have to be a suitable bed for her to lie down on as soon as she arrived—if she really was sick. Somehow Lexie was more and more uncertain about that. She had known Elaine so long and so well. But she climbed to the well-ordered attic, where everything was put away carefully, and searched out blankets, pillows, sheets and pillowcases, a few towels, and some soap. These would be necessities at once of course.
As she worked, her mind was busy thinking about a most uncertain future. Trying to plan for a way ahead in which her most unwilling feet must go. Some urge within her soul forbade that she shrink back and shirk the necessity.
Yet she was not the only one in the world who had trouble.
Chapter 2
They were fighting a war, out across the ocean. Well, she was fighting a war with herself at home. With herself? No, maybe it wasn’t with herself. Maybe it was something that affected the world—that is, a little piece of it. It might even be important to the world how she took this added burden that had come upon her. Could that be possible? From God’s standpoint, perhaps.
So Lexie thought to herself as she went about swiftly putting Elaine?
??s old room to rights, enough to rights to make a place for her to lie down when she arrived. Of course she would do her best to make her see how impossible it would be for her to stay, but there had to be a place for her to lie down.
Hastily she made up the bed with such things as she had been able to find in the attic without unpacking too many boxes. She wanted Elaine to realize how inconvenient her coming in this sudden way had been for her. And yet all the time as she thought it she knew Elaine wouldn’t realize. Elaine would just take it for granted that it was her due to be served and would probably growl at the service, too, considering it inadequate.
She drew a deep sigh and wished with all her heart that the telegram had not arrived until she had left for college. Perhaps Elaine would have been discouraged then and gone back west. Still, of course she wouldn’t. Elaine wasn’t made that way. Elaine demanded service, and if it wasn’t on hand where she chose to be, she turned heaven and earth until it came. Oh, why did this have to come to her after all the other hard things she had been through? Other girls had normal lives with pleasant families and nobody much to torment them. And here she was saddled not only with her unpleasant sister but also her three unknown children who would probably be as unpleasant as their parent, poor little things! And she couldn’t stand it! No, she couldn’t! How could a young girl only twenty, with her own way to make and her college finals just at hand, be expected to take over and bring up a family of three children, to say nothing of their mother, who probably by this time was posing as a hopeless invalid and doing it so prettily that everybody else would pity her?
But there was no use thinking such bitter thoughts. Whatever else her sister was not, she certainly was in trouble enough now with her husband as good as dead, for that was what “missing in action” usually meant. And if she really loved him, as she said she did, it was hard of course. Although it was hard for Lexie to believe that Elaine really loved anybody but herself.