“Dear child!” said Dale tenderly, “I hope you can.”
“I was thinking, Dale, if Mamma should go up to Aunt Evelyn’s perhaps, just perhaps, she might let me stay here a little while and study. Wouldn’t there be a tutor around here I could get, or couldn’t you help me get ready to pass an examination so I could go to that college, too? I could get a job somewhere that would only be part-time and I could pay you for teaching me—”
“Corliss, dear! I wouldn’t want any pay, if I would be good enough. We’d have to find out about that, of course, in case there was such a chance. But you wouldn’t need to get a job. I could give you one. Not a very lucrative one, of course, but one that would give you a little spending money. I thought perhaps you could help me with that little school I’m likely taking over when the way is clear. How would you like that?”
“I’d love it. But wouldn’t I really be in your way, Dale? Wouldn’t you hate having me here for several months till I was allowed to go to college?”
“No dear, I wouldn’t hate it. I would love it. You have grown to be very dear to me since we have been through so much together, and I’d love having you. But of course that would all have to depend on your mother and what she is willing for you to do. But I’d love teaching you if I know enough. I’d have to find out the requirements, of course, maybe I could. If I couldn’t, there would be somebody else, I’m sure.”
Talking quietly, their voices presently faded into silence, and then Dale heard the soft even breathing of Corliss and knew she was asleep and for the time being out of her perplexities. It was strange, wasn’t it, how pleasant it had been to have Corliss want to stay with her? And such a few short days before, what a trial it would have been. She wondered what had made the difference. Was it because she had been trying to make it pleasant for them, and how she seemed to have come to love them?
Ruminating over the wonder of a God-given love where there had been natural dislike, it was not unlike the God-given love of her young man. Softly she fell asleep praying for her beloved, so very far away. What would she have thought could she have known that her beloved was not alone on a wide, turbulent sea, tossing in a little toy of a lifeboat, even though the man who had rescued him and put him there had gone back for some cans of provisions and met a bomb instead. A rescuer who had lost his life! And a rescued man who had been struck by a falling spar was delirious, alone, on the wide ocean, under a dark, starless sky, burning with fever, with no provisions and no companion, with a wounded shoulder, full of pain, too far gone to know his own situation. Now and again a scrap of a song from out of his past floated out hoarsely from the little boat into the night. “All through the night, all through the night, my Savior has been watching over me.”
Was David taking his last journey, on his way to meet his God?
Chapter 19
It was a sunny, bright day when they brought Mrs. Huntley from the hospital, in the very best ambulance the institution boasted, with two of the choicest nurses in charge. The nurses had not been the choice of the hospital, but the patient had made such a terrific uproar about the matter that, rather than have the uproar kept up, the hospital arranged to give her what she wanted on the way over. However, the nurse who was to remain with her for a week or two was not the one she had asked for and expected to have, but a younger nurse, a recent trainee, because they could not spare the best nurses from the busy institution. The nurse who was to remain was sitting in front quite meekly with the driver and pledged to say nothing about it until the patient was well settled in the new bed and the other two had disappeared around the corner where the ambulance would be waiting for them. Then she was to arrive at the bedside and take up her duties. It was not going to be easy for either the nurse or the family, to say nothing about the patient.
So Mrs. Huntley, arriving back in the house she had made so uncomfortable before she left, a little weary from the excitement of moving and the trip, was settled comfortably in the delightful guest bed that had been the pride of dear Grandmother’s heart. She rested back on the smooth, shining linen away at last from the hated sights and sounds of the hospital, closed her eyes and, without intending it, fell into a delightful sleep and never knew until her waking that she was now at the mercy of an entirely new nurse.
The afternoon waned, and the family tiptoed around carefully to preserve the utmost quiet. A single rosebud in a clear glass bud vase touched the atmosphere with delicate, luxurious fragrance, and later there came stealing through the house the delicious odors of fresh baked bread and roasting meat, even penetrating to that quiet room upstairs and speaking to the sleeping senses of the woman who for long weeks had been on hospital fare. Of course it had been a fine hospital with the best of fare, but that was not exactly home cooking, and certainly not Hattie’s cooking. And strange to say after all her grumbling, here was Hattie working hard, determined to do her best for the woman whom she had despised and to have such a dinner as would tempt the appetite of the most particular guest. She was at least determined not to let her dear Miss Dale outdo her in kindness toward the woman who in her heart she looked upon as the most hated of enemies. And yet she was doing her best to produce a delightful dinner that would interest and tempt an invalid’s appetite.
It was later when the invalid at last awoke, the new nurse standing by her side and offering a cool washcloth and a spoonful of medicine and then arranging the delightful tray that Dale brought up with a smile.
Mrs. Huntley did not at once discover that the nurse was new. She was just a trifle bewildered at being in a strange bed with new surroundings, Dale coming in so smilingly, her children there as if they really enjoyed having her. Perhaps it was something as heaven may surprise some of us who have not been living in great anticipation of it. But at least she did not rise to her usual rebellious attitude, and George and Corliss began to hope that perhaps things were going to be different now and their mother was going to live a happy life like other people and not find fault with everything.
Corliss hovered around her and offered to feed her the dessert, which was Hattie’s specialty—a confection of eggs and gelatin and cream in a most delectable form of charlotte russe, and was eaten with cream and crimson raspberry jelly. The invalid, in a kind of wonder, accepted her daughter’s ministrations, a bit ungraciously perhaps, but still accepted them. So all went smoothly until it was time to prepare the invalid for the night and the new nurse appeared on the scene again and began to get her ready for sleep. Then she recognized her strangeness and demanded the other two nurses, and when she was told that they had gone back to the hospital, as they could not be spared any longer, she raved wildly, declined to let the nurse touch her, and demanded that her daughter telephone the hospital and have those nurses sent back to her. When the son and daughter both declined to accept that commission, saying that the head nurse had told them it would be impossible, she went into a storm of tears and mourned her helplessness and the cruelty of the doctors and nurses, and declared she would make that institution known as a dreadful place from one end of the country to the other so that they would have no patients any more. And at last she sent for Dale.
Dale, with a heart lifted for help, went quietly in to her aunt and tried to reason with her, and when she found that did no good, she offered to do the nursing herself; but that, too, was most summarily declined. On the whole, it was very late that night before the invalid was at last composed and drifting off to sleep and the family could take heart of hope and try to get a little rest themselves.
Dale’s last thought as she drifted off to sleep was for her beloved far away. Oh Lord, keep him safely all through the night. And as she closed her eyes and fought back the weary tears that stung to blind her, she wondered when, if ever, she would see him again.
It was two days later, hard days every hour of them, that the message came for the War Department that Captain David Kenyon, naval bomber pilot of note and recently transferred to the command of an army transport, was missing in a
ction.
Somehow it seemed to Dale at first as if she could not bear to see the sun shine when she thought of her beloved, with that calm trust in his eyes, that sunny smile on his lips, gone from her. Dead, perhaps, or even something worse. Missing in action! Didn’t that usually mean they were taken prisoner? Oh, it seemed as if her heart would break. Yet of course she mustn’t let it. She had known when he went away that this might happen. He had known it, too. And they had the sure knowledge that they would meet again. They both were saved, born-again-ones, and they were going Home to meet. She must not give way to this awful goneness that crept through her very being. She had work to do, souls to win, guests to make comfortable. And they did not know of her loss. She must not betray her sorrow. She must go on about her duties knowing that her Lord was keeping her and would live her life for her if she would only let Him. So, not even sorrow must be able to get her down.
And she could not weep even at night. Corliss was sleeping next to her and she must not let her know she was in trouble. Corliss did not know about David.
Then the thought would come that perhaps he was not dead. Sometimes those who were missing in action were found, sometimes they were able to escape from their prison camps. At least she could pray, and her Savior would be watching over her beloved, day and night, and he was loved by her Lord. She remembered how they had prayed together “in life or in death, Lord.” Yes, she must be brave. She must be as brave as if she, too, were fighting in action.
Then it came to her that she had a home front to fight right here in her house. She had to try to win her household to know the Lord.
But neither did life in the home move smoothly. It was hard for everybody. The invalid, when she found the nurses of her choice were out of the question, accepted the new one only under protest and made the poor thing’s life miserable with millions of unnecessary errands, demanding this and that which could not be had, and making many outcries and protests when she was frustrated; and she made the lives of her son and daughter very unhappy.
Perhaps it was because of this that Corliss began to see herself as she had been—selfish and proud and cruel—and began to try to have some self-control.
George, meanwhile, had made a couple of trips to the college of his choice and secured all the necessary details about what would be necessary for both himself and perhaps later for Corliss, also, to enter, though they had no present inkling of how this wish of theirs was going to be carried out.
But Corliss, as soon as she found a little free time when her mother would not suspect, went downtown and procured certain books upon which she would have to be examined if she tried to enter college. With Dale’s encouragement, she began to do a little study by herself, helped out by suggestions from Dale, who was busy indeed just at present assisting the new nurse and taking her turn with the invalid whenever it seemed wise to do so.
Life was looking pretty bleak to Dale just now, with the heavy burden of anxiety upon her heart, the thrilling joy that had been hers suddenly turned into fear and sorrow, and a lingering anxiety. It seemed to her as if her every breath was a prayer.
The days dragged by, each moment filled with some difficult duty or some knotty problem to solve. Sometimes as she passed the door of her grandmother’s room, which stood open always now, like some glimpse into a quiet prayer room, her thoughts went back longingly to the sweet days when Grandmother had been there, slipping from her quietly day by day. But they seemed in contrast with this hectic time like a little glimpse into heaven. Still, she had not had David in those loved days, and now whether he was dead or alive he was hers. If still on this earth, she might still pray for him and his return. But if in Glory, surely he was doubly hers then. So she must not be despondent. Besides, the rest of the people in the house knew nothing of her own special heartache, and so she must carry a sunny face always. They must know that she had a Lord who was able to keep her from falling. Able to give her a sunny smile in the midst of trying circumstances.
Yet in the midst of these hard days, often as she sought the quiet of her grandmother’s room for a little while to pray, she gradually became possessed with the thought that she must pray with all her heart for David. She had a strong feeling that “missing” in this case might not mean death, or even imprisonment. There were stories coming in now and then of those who had been sent out on missions and their ships had been lost, but somehow they had floated for days and finally been picked up. There was one notable case like this, a man who had found God through those days of panic and almost death. Might not David be somewhere safe in God’s keeping?
Meantime the date of the opening of George’s college was coming on, and George was determined to begin if possible. They got hold of Mr. Granniss and, at his suggestion, called up George’s guardian who had charge of his finances and found that he could and would give consent to the arrangement until such time as the boy’s mother should be able to look after his affairs more carefully. So George arranged to go down to the college and start, returning as usual in the evening to talk with his mother and keep her satisfied that he was all right. She never had been one to greatly concern herself over the daily doings of her children. If they were enjoying themselves somewhere, she was usually satisfied. So for the present, George was able to say he was getting acquainted with the surrounding neighborhood or he was reading or studying, and she did not question further. Although they all knew this could not go on indefinitely and he would soon have to account for his absences.
Corliss, meantime, spent as much time with her mother as seemed acceptable, always with a book in hand, trying to study when her mother slept. And more and more Mrs. Huntley was becoming dependent upon Dale and Corliss for attention, preferring to have their ministrations rather than the nurse’s to whom she had taken a dislike.
And so the days settled uneasily down to a routine, and the invalid seemed a bit more content than when she was in the hospital, but kept on with her daily demand for the lawyer. Then one day she asked Dale if she supposed her Granniss-lawyer might be prevailed upon to come and talk with her about trying to get back the money she had paid the fraud of a lawyer, Buffington.
Mr. Granniss very kindly came and let her talk but told her that he was afraid, since she had given cash both times in paying him and had received no receipt for the amount, that it was hopeless to try and get it back. She had nothing to show for the transaction, and that lawyer had the reputation of conducting such affairs in a shady manner. After he went away, Mrs. Huntley wore a desperate look, and Corliss found her crying when she brought her supper that night.
The girls did all they could to cheer her up, told her she didn’t need the money now. When she got well, she would have another check due from her regular income, and so why bother? But the lady did not cheer up easily. And the bills began to come in from the hospital, and finally the doctor told her that he wished she would go for a few weeks to a certain hospital up in the mountains. That he felt it would not only build her up wonderfully but that she might even find help for a more rapid recovery through a noted specialist who was working up there. And when she told him she could not afford it, he told her that his sister was driving up that way to take another patient and they would be glad to have her go with them. There would be a nurse along, and it need not be such a hard trip, nor very expensive, and she need not be in a hurry about paying his bill.
He was very kind, and most surprisingly the invalid was intrigued by the idea and decided to go.
So the household was all in a twitter getting her ready and off. She even sat up for an hour or two and felt no worse for it.
And then Dale came to her with a check for five hundred dollars. “Aunt Blanche,” she said earnestly, “I want you to take this to pay your bills and perhaps have a little left over for necessary expenses when you get there.”
Tears sprang unbidden to the invalid’s eyes, and she stared at Dale, unable to believe that Dale wasn’t doing this for some disagreeable reason. “I can’t tak
e your money, Dale,” she said in a broken voice. “I’m afraid I haven’t been very pleasant to you about the house.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Dale happily. “I’m glad I have the money to help you out. Your own money won’t be here in time, you said, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t use mine, for the present at least. I don’t need it just now.”
“But you are taking care of my children, Dale, and that has cost you something. And I really ought not to go away now. I ought to arrange to send my children home, or put them in a school somewhere before I leave.”
Dale caught at the idea. “Oh, don’t worry about that now. Just you go and get well,” she said. “Corliss and her brother will be all right here, and I’ll promise to find a school for them both where they will be interested till you come back for them. You wouldn’t need to worry at all on that score. What you should do is to get well first, and then everything can be settled up.”
“But they could go up to my sister Evelyn’s, only they both dislike her so much they will make a terrible fuss about it.”
“Well, never mind. I think they’ll enjoy it here more, and I’ll love to have them.”
Her aunt looked at her for a minute in wonder. Then she said thoughtfully, “But you wanted to start a school.”
“Well, perhaps I will after. And if I do, I’ll let Corliss help me teach, perhaps. Anyway, we’ll manage nicely.”
And so, though there wasn’t much gratitude expressed openly, the matter was arranged, and the next morning saw the aunt carried carefully out to the big comfortable hospital car in the arms of a strong man, one of the hospital nurses, who knew how to handle broken bones without hurting. The family stood on the sidewalk and watched her happily away.