The door closed at last on the obnoxious lawyer, while Dale stood desperately on the stairs and tried to realize that there were perhaps days and days ahead of her filled with all sorts of incalculable discomforts. Oh God, help me, all the way through, her heart prayed, as she tried to gather up her courage and go forward. Oh, if they will only go before David comes, she thought to herself. And then her cheeks grew hot in the darkness of the dining room. She was thinking of him as David now. And he was coming again to see her, if only the government didn’t send him away before he had an opportunity to come. Well, she would have to take it all as it came, of course, and surely her God could bring all things to work together for good for her, and for the rightness of everything.
To Dale’s relief, Hattie rang the bell for the evening meal, and they all trooped into the dining room. Dale slipped into the kitchen for a hurried whispered conference with Hattie.
The lunch had been a sketchy affair, partaken of by Powelton and Corliss while Dale was out hunting for her rackets.
The cousins were seated at the table with an air of annoyance that there was any delay in the service when Dale came in, and they kept up a conversation among themselves, scarcely speaking to Dale except to ask her to pass the butter or order more ice water or coffee. And once her aunt told her that she really ought to speak to Hattie about putting so little shortening in her piecrust. “It’s really quite tough, you know, Dale,” she said, making a great show of having to work hard to cut the crust of the delicious apple pie she had just been served.
But Dale smiled good-naturedly. “We’re having a war, you know,” she said gently. “We can’t get as much fat as we might like to use.”
“A good cook can make tender crust without so much shortening,” said the aunt in a superior tone. “Why doesn’t she use cream if she can’t get lard?”
“We can’t get cream,” Dale said with a smile. “Won’t you have another cup of coffee, Aunt Blanche?”
“You always have an impertinent answer ready, don’t you?” said the aunt as she passed her cup for more coffee. “Well, the time is coming fast when you will sing another tune. I’ve found out a good many things this afternoon that will make you open your eyes in astonishment.” She flung this out as she rose from the table; then she went into the living room and took up the evening paper.
Corliss and Powelton soon sauntered off to a movie, and Dale was free for a little while. Then she was called to the telephone. It was Mr. Granniss.
“Is that you, Dale?”
Her voice was low and could not be heard in the living room, she was sure.
“Yes. This is Miss Huntley,” she answered pleasantly in accordance with his instructions.
“Is there anyone nearby to listen?”
“Possibly,” she said composedly.
“All right. Just answer yes or no, or very briefly. Has anything important developed?”
“No.”
“Are you worried?”
“A little.”
“Well, it isn’t necessary, everything is going to be all right. Forget it all and get a good night’s rest. I’ll be over in the morning.”
“Thank you.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
It was a simple conversation, but somehow it lifted a load of worry from Dale’s heart, and quietly she slipped from the telephone and went to the kitchen to help Hattie with the dishes and plan for the problematic morrow. Meantime she was wondering just what her aunt was planning for the night. So far, the guests had taken possession of the house pretty thoroughly for whatever purposes they chose, without any by-your-leave, except at night, and so Dale was left in doubt. But she did not intend to ask any questions. This visit would likely be at an end sometime, and she wanted if possible to have no twinges of conscience lest she had not acted with perfect courtesy.
But there was no use in hoping that there would be any settlement of this question until the cousins came back from the movies, so she took a bit of sewing and a book in which she was interested and went into the living room. She would endeavor to be sociable if her aunt was so inclined, but if not, then she could read.
Mrs. Huntley seemed to be doing thorough work of the evening paper, for she read on and on, studying every page as if she were deeply interested in it, and Dale sat there with her book, trying to concentrate on it, and yet continually wondering what her aunt had been doing downtown all that day.
But at last the cousins came storming up on the porch, and without further ado and very few words, the guests took themselves away to the hotel, saying with an air of condescension that they would be back in the morning for breakfast and demanding that it be an early one, as their lawyer was coming again.
Then Dale, with a deep sigh of relief, locked the house and went to bed, after the long, long day. But as she was drifting off to sleep, her thoughts went happily to the telephone message from that officer this morning. She found herself wondering about it. Why had he taken the trouble to call her? He must have plenty of friends in camp, plenty of people who would invite him to spend a day or a weekend, and yet he had chosen to call her. That was wonderful. Of course they had had a very pleasant hour together that first time she found him sitting alone at the U.S.O., reading a much-thumbed newspaper. She had made hot tea for him and found some doughnuts, and then he had come out to the kitchen and helped her wipe dishes. She had been taking the place of three women who all had good reasons to be absent from the center that night, and it was getting late. Most of the fellows had gone away. He alone had been left. Why? Didn’t he care to go to the places they chose? Or was he not feeling well? She hadn’t bothered to ask him. He had just said he was a bit tired. But not too tired to wipe dishes. That was strange. Well, she had decided he was homesick and wanted to talk to some woman, so he had smiled at her and wiped dishes. They had had a nice little talk and he had walked home with her when she closed up for the night and left. Just being kind. It was nice of him. And the reason he came to the funeral and brought the flowers? He was sort of doing that for the sake of his own grandmother whose funeral he had not known of overseas even in time to send flowers.
That the young man came because he was attracted to her never entered her head. Dale wasn’t a girl who was self-centered. She had grown up in a healthy atmosphere, never realizing that she had a beautiful face and an unusually lovely expression. Never dreaming of great things that might come to her. Thinking only of love in the abstract, as a miracle that might come to anyone sometime, but not planning to go out and get it for herself. There was too much to be done for others in this world to leave much time for thoughts of self. And she had been so quiet and shy in school, and what college she had had, that she had not made many boy friends. She was just good friends with all who came her way. She didn’t wear lipstick or paint her fingernails or dress in the latest fad of fashion to make people look at her. She was just a healthy, happy girl doing her duty as far as she knew it and enjoying the doing of it. So, though the telephone message from the young officer that morning had pleased her mightily and set her heart thrilling pleasantly, she did not immediately go to planning to marry him or do anything about it except to be a pleasant friend to him in the last hours before he should go overseas again and perhaps to meet death. He knew the Lord. She was glad of that. They could talk more understandingly together because of that fact. And it was nice to have this pleasant memory of the day.
A few miles away in the base, the young officer was staring up at the moon that shone through a window of the barracks and thinking of the immediate future and what it likely held for him. He had finished his quota of missions and been duly decorated for them. He was proud of his work in the past. He would like to go back and fight some more, but from what the commanding officer had said to him briefly the day before, he had reason to believe that something else was being shaped up for him. He didn’t yet know what it was, but he didn’t want changes. There was emptiness and desolation enough in his
life already, and he didn’t like the idea of a new background, new companions, new duties. Oh, doubtless they were honors, but somehow he had lost heart. His last two months in the hospital recovering from the raids in which he had participated prominently and now this trip home had filled him with a great desire to get back to that fighting line and help get this war over. What he wanted was for the world to return to the old life that he had known and enjoyed before he went to war. He wanted a home and a real life. He wanted some friends, a family, perhaps a place to come home to at night and someone to welcome him. But of course that could not be until this was over, so he was impatient to get into the active part of the fighting again and be responsible for definitely wiping out as many of the enemy as possible. They need not think they could put him on any office job and count that his due. If they tried that he would definitely protest. Such jobs might be all right for fellows who were really sick and who loathed the thought of battle, but he somehow knew that battle was his place until all this war was over. He could never be content to settle down and do office work, important as that might be to the whole effort, while there was a job requiring courage and a willingness to face peril. That was what he would ask for if they let him have any choice.
But of course they might not. And he must not dwell on it. Tomorrow morning he was to meet his commanding officer and hear more about it, and he must be ready to yield his wishes to what was ordered. But if there was any chance to choose, he certainly would choose to go back and help get this job done quickly, this job of setting the world free for peace and quietness.
So he told the moon, as he turned over and sought to go to sleep.
Then came that girl’s face, the face that had attracted him so much when he had first seen it—a clean, happy, peaceful face, lovely in something above the look he saw in most other girls’ faces, a face without “illumination” as he jocosely called makeup. A face that had an inner illumination coming from a beautiful soul. Or would it be a beautiful spirit? A lovely inner life. That was it.
He had known from first sight of her that it was such a girl he would like to know and make her a part of his own life sometime when he should return to the world, if such a time was really to come for him.
So he lay now and watched her face in memory as he reviewed the few little times of contact he had had with her. Every one of them fit. He could see her now as they stood beside her grandmother’s casket while she arranged his lilies in the white hands. There was no despair in her eyes, only a glad look as if she were preparing a loved one to go to some great festive occasion. Not getting her ready to lie in the ground. Not bidding her farewell forever. There had been hope and trust in her eyes, in the set of her lovely lips, and as he thought about it, his own hope and trust for a life hereafter seemed to strengthen.
He thought of the few minutes of hurried talk they had had at her desk while he wrote his address for her and the way his hand had touched hers as she gave him the pen. It thrilled him now to think of it. And how her voice had sounded over the phone when she recognized him and seemed glad. The thought of that thrilled him, too.
But this was no way for a man to feel when he was going into the thick of battle again, perhaps. He should not wish a love and a sorrow together like that on any lighthearted girl. Had he been wrong to call her and ask for himself these few hours of joy before he went?
There it was again! That uncertainty. He didn’t even know yet that he was going, or that going, his would be a time of peril. He didn’t know a thing about it. Suppose, on the other hand, they should want him to stay here and do something important. Suppose there was a chance he might love and marry and have a home with a girl like Dale. How his heart thrilled to even think of it. And yet—and yet—He simply must not bank on anything like this. For if that came he knew in his heart that his inner soul would not be satisfied unless he went out first with the rest and faced the peril and the fire and won through. He simply must not let himself desire such home things now. He must yield his life to God. For he had a God in whom he believed and trusted. God had some plan for his life, and it had to be as God wanted it. That was what his inner soul desired.
Then somehow peace came into his heart. The future days were bringing changes. Perhaps this problem would be settled for him. Meantime, at least he had made pretty sure that if he were permitted to stop over in the city he had at least paved the way for meeting Dale again for a little while and talking with her. And if he was able to call her up and arrange for their meeting, wouldn’t it be all right to ask her to bring along a little snapshot of herself that he might be able to look at her face sometimes when he was far away again? Surely there would be no harm in that, even if he decided that she didn’t care about a friendship herself as much as he did. Surely she would not object to having a fighter carry a snapshot of herself over the seas with him, just in memory of the pleasant times they had had. At least he would ask her, when and if he telephoned.
Chapter 7
Dale awoke the next morning to the disturbing thought of planning menus for the day. The larder was getting low, and she really ought to go down and order a lot of things. There would need to be vegetables, of course. But everything was expensive now when one considered buying for four guests. She simply couldn’t provide expensive fare if these relatives were going to stay indefinitely. If she only knew how long this was to go on! Well, perhaps she must just begin to cut down quietly on the food and say nothing about it.
She hurried downstairs early, and together, she and Hattie went through the stores already on hand. They finally decided on oatmeal, toast, coffee, and pears for breakfast. If the guests didn’t like it, well, that was all she could do about it now. If she should go on serving fine meals she would presently be bankrupt, and they would just go on growling about her arrangements. So perhaps it was as well to do only what she could afford and let the results be what they would. She would not apologize. She would treat her menus as if they were the best that anybody could desire.
And what should she have for lunch? Perhaps some lettuce sandwiches and canned soup. If it did not please her boarders they could always go out and buy food not far away. She didn’t want to seem mean, but she must not run over her budget. Perhaps they would understand without an argument. But she had little hope for that.
And what should she have for the main dish at dinner? She had no more red stamps with which to get meat. It would be two days more before others were released, and her guests had produced no ration books to help her out. Well, there was still a glass jar of tongue, and there were some lovely big flakes of codfish. What would Corliss say if they had creamed codfish for dinner that night? Well, she would try it. Of course it wouldn’t be so good if Mr. Granniss had to stay to either meal. She didn’t care about the lawyer Buffington. She felt almost guilty at the plans she was making. But then she knew she could depend on Hattie. Hattie would present codfish, or in fact anything, at its very best. It would be delicately flavored, delightfully attractive, and appetizing, really almost interesting, on the table. There were apples, too. There could be applesauce and cookies for dessert.
Then Dale went up to her room and knelt down by her bed.
Dear Lord, I’m doing the best I can. Is this right? Should I make some further sacrifice, sell something I want to keep, in order to buy something more expensive? If You want me to, please show me. If not, please give me courage to keep calm in the midst of any storm that arises. And please don’t let us have trouble with the relatives or about the property. Please make a way for them to go away soon.
This last sentence was like a young child’s cry for help in utter despair. She went downstairs again to meet the day with more assurance in her heart than she had felt when she awoke.
But the day did not enter smiling. At least the guest part of the day did not. It was almost as if the enemy understood how this child of God was beginning to rest and trust in her heavenly Father’s care, so he summoned all his wildest young demons to meet her
and demolish all her defenses. They waltzed into the house along with the relatives and began to battle even before any good-mornings were said.
“I certainly hope you’ve got a good breakfast this morning,” flung out Corliss as she slammed into the room. “I was just sick all day yesterday whenever I thought of those horrid eggs I had to eat!”
Dale tried to speak reassuringly, with a bright little wistful smile: “No eggs today,” she said. “They were all eaten up yesterday. I haven’t had time to go to the store yet.”
“Well, that’s a good thing,” said Corliss. “I don’t see what eggs were made for, anyway. If I had my way there never would be any.”
“What would you do for floating island and lemon meringue pies, then?” said Dale, smiling.
“Oh, those! Well, I suppose it would be all right to have a few eggs for lemon meringue pie. I’m not so keen about floating island.”
Dale did not go out to the dining room with them. She said she would run down to the store right away before so many others had to be waited on, as there were things they needed.
“Well, get some beefsteak,” shouted Powelton.
“No, get roast beef. Prime ribs, you know,” called Corliss.
“Sorry,” said Dale pleasantly, “I can’t get either of those. I haven’t any more red ration stamps, and you can’t get steak or roasts without red stamps. We’ll have to go easy on the butter, too. We have only a quarter of a pound left, and no more stamps will be released yet for two days.”
“Why, that’s ridiculous!” said Corliss. “I’ll bet Hattie has been eating up the butter.”
But Dale went on about her business, realizing that if she got out of hearing Corliss would stop talking and Hattie would not have to hear her. Poor Hattie! It was hard enough for her to keep her temper without also being charged with eating the butter. So Dale went on to do her shopping, hoping and praying that the breakfasters might get through without too much growling and that Hattie would be able to carry on until her return.