GI Brides (34 page)

“I’m afraid I don’t think so,” said Dale firmly but pleasantly. “However, I’ll be glad to call up and inquire whether there is room anywhere. I can call the Oxford Hotel. It’s rather expensive, but it would be very nice, if they still have room. And being expensive they might be more likely to have a room left. Or would you rather I try the cheaper places first?”

“I should think that would be entirely up to you, whatever you want to pay. We are your guests, you know.”

Dale stared at her aunt in slow comprehension. “Oh, I see,” she said slowly. “Well, I don’t see that it’s my affair at all. If you are my guests, you will occupy the rooms I have arranged for you. But since they do not suit you, I think the choice would be all your own. I couldn’t afford to pay hotel bills, you know.”

“Then you could have sent for the undertaker and had Grandma taken away. It isn’t too late to do that now.”

“No,” said Dale, “I can’t do that. But if you won’t stay here, I can call up and find out if there are any accommodations left anywhere. Or, if you and Powelton are satisfied to stay here, I can ask one of the neighbors to take in Corliss. The old lady who just went away asked if she could do anything for me. She has a little hall bedroom that is plain but immaculate, where I think Corliss could be very comfortable. I could call and ask her. Would you like that, Corliss?”

“Me? Go
alone
to some little old
stranger’s
house? Not on yer life!” said Corliss hatefully.

Dale gave her a steady look and then turned into the house and went to the telephone, followed by the three guests.

“What are you doing to do?” asked Corliss impertinently. “You needn’t think you can force me into anything like this. I’ll
scream
! I’ll make a scene! You haven’t really heard me scream yet!”

Dale did not answer. Instead she called the number of the Oxford Hotel and asked for the manager, while the three invaders stood in a semicircle around her belligerently. Dale, as she caught a glimpse of their three unpleasant faces, could not help thinking what a contrast they were to the sweet, placid face lying upstairs with the glory of heaven upon it.

A few clear-cut questions she asked, showing that she was well versed in making business arrangements. “You have a room? Only
one
room? What floor is that on? The second floor? What price? Ten dollars a day? Is there a double bed? Twin beds, you say? And where would the young man sleep? The fifth floor, you say? A small hall bedroom? Five dollars a day. Oh, you say there is another larger room on the fifth next to the small one? The price is seven-fifty a day? Thank you. The lady will probably be around there to look at them. Yes, it’s a lady and her daughter and son.” Dale turned. “You heard what he said, didn’t you? Would that be satisfactory, or do you wish me to ask at other places?”

“Yes,” said Aunt Blanche. “It’s best to find out what is available. Yes, call up three or four more hotels.”

Dale smiled. “I’m afraid I don’t know that many hotels anywhere near here. There is the Longworth and the Kenmore. No others this side of the city. Unless of course you want to go all the way in town, and that would cost you a good deal in taxi fares.”

Dale turned back to the telephone and called up the Longworth but was told curtly that they had no available room at any price. Then she tried the Kenmore and found one large double room, where a cot could be put in for the young brother.

Dale gave the result briefly and then said, “Now, please excuse me a minute while I talk with Hattie. There are some plans for tomorrow she will be waiting to know, and you can talk this over and see what you want to do. When I come back I’ll call a taxi for you.”

Then Dale vanished into the kitchen.

“The very idea!” said the indignant aunt. “Well, I guess she’ll find she’ll have to pay for this. I’ll have all bills sent to her.”

Dale returned and ordered the taxi. She was relieved to get her unaccommodating guests off finally and be alone in the quiet of her sorrow.

“They ain’t no kind of relatives for a dear lady like our Grandma to have,” grumbled Hattie as she locked the back door and turned out the kitchen light. “I’m right glad they’re outta the house, so I am, and I wish they didn’t have to come back. They don’t care nothing about
her
—just what they can get out of it!”

“Well there, Hattie, don’t let’s think such thoughts about them. That wouldn’t please Grandmother, and I’m quite sure it won’t make it any easier to get along with them while they are here.”

“Yeah. I know that. But human nature can’t stand
every
thing, you know.”

“No, but we haven’t had to stand everything, Hattie. And besides, Grandmother’s Lord can help us to stand even everything.”

“Oh, you is just a saint, Miss Dale, an’ no mistakin’,” sighed the old woman. “I couldn’t never be as good as you, no matter how hard I tried.”

“Well, just tell the Lord about it, Hattie, and then forget it. Do you know, I don’t believe they know the Lord, and that’s what’s the matter with them. But if we act unpleasantly to them, they won’t have much opinion of the way we serve the Lord, either. We’ve got to think of that, you know, Hattie. Grandmother always said our business on earth was to witness for the Lord.”

“I know, Miss Dale. Yes, I know well enough, but I ain’t so much on the doin’. Say, Miss Dale, do you reckon they will come to breakfast?”

“I don’t know, Hattie. I told them breakfast would be at eight and we were having lunch at half past twelve to get everything cleared away in time for the service, but Aunt Blanche didn’t answer, so we’ll just have a simple breakfast and lunch, and if they come we can always cook another egg. Dry cereal, coffee, toast, jam, and orange juice. Then that nice soup you made for lunch, and hot muffins with applesauce. If that doesn’t suit them, they can go back to their hotel. But I don’t much believe they will come till lunch, or perhaps only in time for the service. However, don’t worry about it. Just plan simply and have enough so if they do come we don’t need to be embarrassed. Now, good night, Hattie, and thank you for the way you’ve carried on today and made things easier for me.”

“Oh, you blessed little lady, I ain’t done nothin’. I just wish I coulda made things easier. Good night.”

And then the two went quietly to their beds to rest for the day that was ahead and to ask keeping all through the night and the days that were to follow.

T
he next day dawned brightly, a fitting morning for an old saint to leave this earth on her way to her heavenly home. Dale rose quite rested and ready to face the trials that would undoubtedly come to her that day.

She had a passing wish that she could go in there and stand by her sweet grandmother and tell her all that had passed, for somehow she felt her beloved presence was still here. Well, she knew that if she were here she would only laugh at some of the things that happened and press her lips and shake her silver head at the whole attitude of those unwelcome relatives, and she would finally say, “Didn’t I tell you, Dale dear?”

Then she knelt by her bed and thanked the Lord that her grandmother was away out of it all, not here to hear the unpleasant words, nor guess at the insinuations that Dale was having to bear.
I thank You, dear Lord,
she prayed,
that You have taken her home, out of all the unpleasantness of earth. And please help me to keep calm and sweet and bear everything gently as You would have me do.

She went down the stairs slowly, singing softly to herself the words of a little chorus that the soldier’s words had brought to her mind, a song she had often sung in young people’s gatherings.

I’m walking in the smile of God.”

Hattie looked up from her work at the stove and smiled. “You-all feelin’ better, Miss Dale?” she asked in her most motherly tone. “You look real rested. Now sit down and eat your breakfast. You ain’t got no call to wait to see if them relatives come. They’ll surely understand that people will be comin’ and goin’ and you couldn’t wait around to be stylish.”

Dale glanced at the clock. “Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “I believe you’re right. They’ll probably like it better that way anyway. And then, you know, they may not come.”

“I surely hopes they don’t!” breathed Hattie, almost like a prayer, as she slammed out into the kitchen to bring in the coffee and toast, and Dale felt her soul echoing an
Amen
to that prayer.

But they came. All three of them. With an eye to Hattie’s delectable cooking they remembered. It was a quarter to nine before they got there, and the table was all cleared off, except for the cloth. But when Hattie heard them say they hadn’t eaten yet, she whisked the dishes on and remembered to keep a pleasant face as she had promised Dale she would do.

There was orange juice for them all, coffee, and toast in plenty.

“Is this all?” asked Powelton insolently. “We should’ve stayed at the hotel. If I had known—” But Hattie hurried out into the kitchen, thus moving the audience to further insolence.

Hattie returned presently with a platter of neatly fried eggs and set them down with finality. Powelton surveyed them unpleasantly and asked, “Haven’t you got any bacon? I like bacon with my eggs.”

But Hattie in a greatly controlled tone said quietly, “Not today, we ain’t. We couldn’t have the smell of bacon when there’s folks coming and going.”

“Nonsense!” said the boy in his imperious voice. “Go cook me some bacon.”

Hattie looked at him calmly an instant, with close-shut lips, and then marched back to the kitchen, shutting the door definitely. She did not return, and Powelton finally finished the eggs and went out to the front porch to smoke endless cigarettes, growing more and more peeved at the idea of the funeral that was imminent and from which his mother had absolutely refused to let him absent himself.

“You know you have got to make as good an appearance as possible,” his mother had said. “The will hasn’t been read yet, and it may mean something to you if the lawyers are in your favor.”

So the spoiled boy sulked on the front porch and smoked and watched the undertakers bring piles of folding chairs into the house. And when he went into the house to get a drink of water, he found them taking the leaves out of the dining room table, closing it up, and shoving it to the far corner of the room.

“Hey!” he said arrogantly, standing in the doorway. “You can’t do that! We’ve gotta have lunch here before the funeral!”

The undertakers glanced at him curiously and looked to their own boss, who answered Powelton curtly. “Those were the orders, young man,” he said and paid no further attention to him.

So the guests discovered—when Hattie called Aunt Blanche to the hurried meal—that lunch was to be served in the kitchen. A couple of small, neat tables covered with snowy napkins were set in the far end of the kitchen, with steaming bowls of soup for the three, cups of coffee, a pitcher of milk, plenty of bread and butter, and applesauce with a plate of sugary doughnuts. But Dale was nowhere to be seen.

“She’s in the livin’ room, fixin’ the flowers,” explained Hattie when questioned. “She said she couldn’t come now.”

Aunt Blanche stiffened and sat down in the neat chair after inspecting it to see if it was really clean.

“Well, if I’d known I was to be treated so informally,” she signed, “I certainly shouldn’t have come.”

Hattie pursed her lips grimly together and refrained with effort from saying, “I wisht ye hadn’t uv.”

But they ate a good lunch, and not a crumb of the big plate of doughnuts remained, for Powelton and Corliss made a business of finishing them, meantime going outside to observe developments.

“Well,” said Aunt Blanche arrogantly, as she rose from the kitchen chair, “that’s the first time I was ever served a meal in the kitchen in any place where I was visiting.”

But Hattie again made no reply, and very irately and a trifle uncertainly the guest withdrew.

They found when they entered the hall that the casket had been arranged in the living room opposite the door, and the sweet silver-crowned face was visible among the flowers.

Corliss gasped and, ducking her face down in her mother’s neck, got ready one of her terrific screams. But her mother, well knowing the signs, put a quick hand over her mouth and uttered a grave order: “Shut right up! Do you hear? There are ladies coming in the front door. And there comes a sailor!”

It was that word
sailor
that stopped the scream in its first gasp. Corliss lifted her frightened, angry eyes and caught a glimpse of a uniform coming in the front door.

Wide-eyed, Corliss ducked behind her mother, slunk into the corner out of sight of the doorway, and shut her eyes. If she had to endure this torture, at least she would make it as bearable as possible. She wouldn’t
see
any more than she
had
to see of the horror of death.

The people were stealing in quietly now, going into the living room for a solemn look at the face of the old friend who was lying there and then, with downcast eyes, sitting down in an unobtrusive seat. A few of them stepped across to the open dining room. It seemed to be quite a sizable gathering, mostly old ladies, a few uninteresting-looking men, thought Corliss, as she peeked out between the fringes of her lashes and observed Grandmother’s friends contemptuously. The seats were almost full and the minister was arriving, according to a somber whisper of the woman who sat just in front. And then suddenly there came more people, hurrying in as if they knew they were late, filling up all the chairs in sight. Behind them came a good-looking young man in a gray business suit, who walked straight out of sight over to where the minister had gone, by the foot of the casket. Corliss wondered who he was and stretched her neck to try and see him, wishing she had taken a better seat while there was still room. But there wasn’t a vacant chair in sight, and even if there were she couldn’t get by, the chairs were crowded so closely.