GI Brides (21 page)

“Give me that letter! I want to see for myself that you’re not fooling me.”

“No!” said Lexie firmly, and sudden as a bird in flight she flew down the path to the kitchen door and fled up to her room, where she locked her door and sat down to read her letter.

She did not, however, stay upstairs long. She knew that to make much of that letter would only be to continue the controversy with Elaine. She must make light of the whole thing. With fingers that trembled just a little at the thought of a letter from anybody for herself, she opened the envelope and unfolded the letter. Later she would read it more carefully, of course, but just now it was as if she must take the whole thing in at a glance and be ready to be composed about it if Elaine should venture to climb the stairs and try to investigate.

Lexie had a trained eye, used to taking in a good deal at a glance, and the whole lovely idea of the letter burst upon her mind like a sweet picture. That boy, with his books in a strap and his handsome, laughing eyes—yes, she remembered him! Of course! She even remembered his asking her if her name was short for Lexicon. She laughed and swept her eyes downward to the quiet, wistful, respectful closing, and then folded the letter and locked it quickly inside her old suitcase under the bed. She ran downstairs and began to help Cinda in the dining room, making out a list of small necessities that must be ordered from the store.

Suddenly Elaine entered like a frowning nemesis.

“Who was that letter from? I insist on being told.”

“Why should you be told?” asked Lexie innocently. “It was from an old friend I used to know in my school days. He’s in the armed forces now, and he was just sending me a greeting the way all the boys in the army do. It isn’t important.”

Elaine gave her an angry, suspicious look, but Lexie went out the back door and down the field to the store. Then Elaine went back to her own scheming. On her way Lexie had an opportunity to think over this remarkable surprise, remember more definitely the boy who had accosted her on her white gate so long ago, and try to think just how he had looked. A nice smile, a twinkle in his eyes, pleasant words—to just a little girl! And to think he had remembered it all these years!

When Lexie came back from the store with the yeast cake Cinda had sent her for, there was a look of unexpected brightness in her pretty, wistful face that quite gave old Cinda pleasure. She knew there had been some sort of a quarrel between the two sisters, and she was glad to see that Lexie no longer looked as if she had been crushed. There was a lightness and a brightness that was more of what Cinda would like to see in Lexie’s face.

And all the morning as Lexie went on her sunlit way across the meadows and did her other errands at the store, and back again, she was thinking back to the day she had swung on the gate and seen the nice, big boy! And to think he had written to her! Remembered her all these years, and thought of her when he was under fire! He said that the memory of her face had helped him bear the heat and fire and terror. Thanked her for just being herself, a little girl with a smile in her eyes for a stranger boy.

As soon as lunch was over and the children started off to their play again, Elaine retired in a huff to her bed and a nap. Lexie stole upstairs to her room and locked the door, and there in the quiet she read that letter over again. Read it several times, and reveled in the fact that she had a letter from a young man across the sea who remembered her.

When she knew the letter by heart she took her fountain pen out of her handbag, hunted up some stationery from her little old desk in the attic, and wrote an answer to that letter. Somehow it seemed to her that she must answer at once, that a letter like that demanded an immediate reply. A lonely soldier boy who turned back to his childhood for a bit of comfort! She would let him know that she remembered, too.

Lexie slipped out the back door and whisked across the fields to the post office with her letter, and when she returned she went straight up to the attic to put things right. She hadn’t had time before, and Elaine hadn’t even gone back to attempt clearing up the mess she had made. Lexie was appalled. Blankets and pillows and papers and books spread out in a heterogeneous mass, papers and old letters all scattered over the top. She stood still for a moment, angry tears springing into her eyes.

Then she remembered.

Her Lord was with her. He would know how hard this was for her to bear, seeing her mother’s precious things that had been so carefully guarded and put away in such lovely order, now all crumpled up and thrown around, some of them crushed in balls and thrown under the edge of the eaves.

Lexie dropped down in the midst of all the disorder and struggled with her tears. “Dear God,” she prayed softly, “please, help me now. Help me to forgive her, and not to let her know I am angry.”

Then she lifted her head and went to work.

First of all, the precious letters she gathered into a neat pile. The box they had been packed away in was sprawled at the other end of the room with its sides torn down, and its cover bent in two. Elaine was evidently angry because she couldn’t find what she was searching for, perhaps. Well, why think about it? Just get things in order as quickly as possible, and then put them all under lock and key and hide the key or keep it always about her. That would be the only safe way. She would probably have to go down to the hardware store and buy some more locks. Or perhaps a hammer and some nails would be better. That ought to make things safer, for she was well aware that Elaine could never pull a nail out of a board, and it wouldn’t be easy for her to open a box that was nailed up. She must be prevented from pulling things to pieces again.

So, carefully, thoughtfully, she put her precious belongings into safekeeping, and finally nailed up the boxes securely.

She was almost done with her work when the stair door opened and Elaine’s shrill voice complained: “What on earth are you doing upstairs, Lexie? Here I lie down to rest and just get to sleep, and you set up the most unearthly noise right over my head! It seems to me that you are just doing this to be disagreeable, and you know how easily I get one of those awful headaches. I feel one coming on now, and I just know I’ll have it all night.”

Lexie stopped in dismay.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Elaine. I thought you were still sitting out on the porch.”

“But what are you doing?”

“Why, I was just nailing up some boxes so things won’t get all over the place.”

“You mean you are nailing up boxes you don’t want
me
to look into. That makes me quite certain you have something more that you are afraid I will find.”

“No,” said Lexie sadly. “I just wanted to put things away. It looked terrible up here. I’m only straightening up. But I’m quite sure there is nothing up here you would want to find. Oh Elaine, I wish you wouldn’t be so unfriendly. You give me the feeling that you are just here to fight me.”

“Really? Well, if you want me to treat you differently, you know what to do. Come clean. Tell me all you know about that money. Then I’ll be as friendly as I always used to be.” Lexie sighed.

“I’ve told you all I know already and you won’t believe me. What is the use of talking anymore?”

“Well, there isn’t any use. Not if you keep to that attitude, of course,” and the stair door closed with a slam. Then she could hear Elaine’s footsteps clicking back to the living room.

Lexie took a deep breath and, turning, went on with her work. But she drove no more nails at that time. There was no need to make her sister angrier than she already was.

When the attic was in neat order again, and all traces of the onslaught were removed, Lexie went quietly downstairs and marshaled the children home from the neighbor’s sandpile, which had become the unfailing rendezvous of attraction to them. Their mother seemed to pay no more attention to them than if she had never heard of them, unless she thought somebody else was finding fault with them or attempting to punish them, then she roused to a scathing sarcasm. But Elaine, after her tempestuous outburst, had gone back to her bed and was soundly asleep at last, an old mystery-story novel lying open by her side. So Lexie was free for the time being. After the children were fed, she coaxed them off to bed by telling them a couple of stories while Cinda reluctantly prepared a special tray for Elaine, to tempt her to relax and stop tormenting Lexie.

But after the tray had been administered, Elaine still refused to be on good terms with Lexie, to Cinda’s great disgust, and went back to her bed and her novel. So Lexie sent Cinda off for a walk, and a little time to visit an old friend in the neighborhood. Lexie sat on the quiet porch and had opportunity to think over the remarkable letter she had received. A soldier in the midst of the fire! She likened his situation to her own. For in a way they were alike. Although no physical harm was coming to herself, she was in no danger to her health, she had no pain nor actual fear to endure, yet on the other hand, what could be hotter than her sister’s scorching words? What could be lonelier than this existence, day after day in company with one who apparently hated her, and lived only to do her harm, to subjugate her?

But she must not get to pitying herself. Her soldier boy was not doing that. He was drawing comfort from a distant picture of mountain strength, dewy grass, and a child’s small cool hand. And
she
must find the comfort that surely was somewhere about for her. And if she didn’t find it she must press on anyway. Oh yes, there was comfort, there
must
be comfort in the thought that God was with her, and God cared, had promised to be with her through water or through fire. Yes, this lad from her childhood past had helped her just as he claimed that she had helped him. The thought of him was pleasant, like something out of a story, when all had been unhappy prose before the letter came. It certainly was a strangely beautiful thing for that grand boy to have grown up and yet to have remembered her, an insignificant little girl, remembered her well enough to take the trouble to write her a letter.

There was one thing that made her sad for him. He must feel strangely alone in this world that he should bother to write to a mere thought-shadow of a child he had seen but once. There must be something almost occult about this. Lexie couldn’t understand it, but she liked it. Perhaps God had made him do it! What a wonderful thought!

And then she heard Elaine groaning, heard her flinging her book away upon the floor and bursting out into heartbreaking sobs.

Lexie hesitated for just a moment. Should she go to her? And then she heard her calling Cinda petulantly like a child’s wail, and she hesitated no longer. Stepping to the bedroom door she said gently: “Is something the matter, Elaine? Are you feeling worse? Can I do anything for you?”

Elaine stopped her sobbing and looked up.

“Oh, it’s
you,
is it?” she said in a voice like an icicle. “I didn’t call
you,
I called Cinda. I wouldn’t want to trouble
you,
who are so utterly unaccommodating. Where is Cinda?”

“Cinda went out for a little while,” said Lexie pleasantly. “Tell me what you want, Elaine. I’ll be glad to do anything I can for you. I don’t want to be unaccommodating.”

“Oh, you
don’t,
don’t you?” taunted the unhappy woman. “Well then, come clean and tell me what I want to know about that money!”

“I’m sorry, Elaine. I’ve told you all I know. You don’t believe me. There is nothing else to say!”

“Oh,
be still
!” snapped Elaine, kicking her slipper off at her. “I’m sick of such lying prattle. I wish you would go upstairs and let me alone. Here I am, a widow if there ever was one, or worse than a widow perhaps. The only man I ever loved, either dead or a prisoner of war, and I all alone having to battle my way with an unfriendly world, and penniless, having to fend for my poor, dear little children. And my only sister, instead of showing sympathy and kindness and being ready to sacrifice some part of the fortune that she has been enjoying, remains silent and smug and refuses to divulge what has been done with the booty!”

Elaine was working herself up to a fine fury now, and turned to Lexie fiercely. “Get
out
!” she cried. “I say,
get out
! I don’t want to see you again,
ever, anymore
!”

Lexie quietly stepped out of the room and said no more.

What was she to do with a situation like this? There seemed to be no possible way of making Elaine believe what she had told her. How could she go on from day to day under conditions like this? Certainly she couldn’t hope to do much worthwhile studying.

But then, this wasn’t any worse than that soldier over on the other side of the world had it. There was no actual fire here. And God let that young man go through that, probably for some reason she wasn’t wise enough to understand. And He wanted her to go through this, and walk worthy of Him, worthy of having God for her Companion, Christ for her Savior. Could there possibly be glory in this walk? Would any witness she could manifest be a testimony, to her unbelieving sister, for instance? What and if somehow by her life she might show forth to Elaine what Christ wanted to be to
her
? It didn’t seem possible that anything she could do would do any good, but if it did, wouldn’t it be worth doing? Of course she could never do it alone. It would have to be Christ living in her, and not herself.