GI Brides (43 page)

“Oh, I
do
!” said Dale with happy eyes. “I used to think a day in the woods was the next thing to heaven when I was a little girl. And after all I’ve been through, this is going to be wonderful!”

“I’m glad of that,” he said, pressing her fingers under his hand. “Here! Here is a taxi.” He helped her in, explained to the driver where he wished to go, sat down beside her, and they were soon on their way. But the young man lost no time in quietly possessing himself of her hand again.

It seemed amazing to Dale that just a quiet handclasp could become such a wonderful thing, going to the heart of her being and bringing her closer to this almost stranger than she had ever imagined anyone could be to another.

She found her own fingers clinging to his hand and caught her breath at herself. Yet it seemed so right. Was she in a dream, and would she soon wake up and find it all had not happened? Could she be losing her head?

They whirled through the soft greenness of the park—tall trees arching overhead, wide drives and banks of shrubbery on every side, breath of the sweet out-of-doors wafting in at the open window, here and there a little cottage with some historical legend painted on a board at the side, beds of fall flowers, glimpses of the sky above, arches of a large bridge spanning overhead. It was like going into a new world. And David knew a lot about all these places. He had purposely come here on his last trip to find out about it, so that it might be of interest to them both. He was telling her now what he knew with animated words, but his hand was still warm around her own, and his eyes were telling pleasant, friendly, happy thoughts to her heart. She couldn’t quite place herself in all this delight. It wasn’t anything she could withdraw herself from, as her dignified life training would have admonished her at another time to do. This was a real friend, telling her good things, in a gentle, friendly way. A Christian young man. Couldn’t she trust herself to be happy over it?

They climbed a hill now and dismissed the taxi, and then they turned into the deeper, higher woods until they came to a pleasant sheltered clearing where they could look out over the far world that seemed so distant and yet was so near that Dale drew her breath in delight.

They stood together for a moment, looking out across the world, David still holding Dale’s hand, quietly, warmly, as if it belonged there, and then he turned and looked down at her, straight into her beautiful eyes that were looking so earnestly, so questioningly up into his, and it suddenly seemed as if their whole brief acquaintance was climaxed in that wonderful moment. David’s other hand slipped out almost reverently toward her, as he bent his head and drew her close within his arms.

“Dale!” he breathed softly, in almost a whisper. “Dale! My darling! I
love
you! I love you with my whole heart! I’ve loved you since I first saw you. And because we’ve had so little time to get acquainted and I have to go away so soon, I’ve brought you here to this lovely spot so near to heaven to tell you about it. I pray that God will help you to forgive me for being so abrupt about this. But Dale, darling, I love you.”

Then he drew her reverently closer and bent and laid his lips upon her own.

There swept over Dale such joy as she had never dreamed could come to a girl on this earth as she surrendered herself to his embrace, and her soft lips answered his caress.

They soon came to themselves, and he drew her down to sit beside him on the broad, pleasant bench that was placed comfortably behind some young hemlocks. His arms were around her, and he gently put her dear head down on his shoulder.

“Have I rushed you too much, my dear?” he asked tenderly. “I know it’s a very short time to get you used to such a great love as I want to give to you before I go away, but this was all the time I had, and there hasn’t seemed any other way. I love you, and when I come back I want to make you my wife—that is, if you’re willing to wait for me. To take a chance that I will live to come back. Am I being too presumptuous to dare to hope you could love me?”

Dale nestled her head closer on his shoulder and her hands in his clasp. “Oh, I do love you,” she murmured. “It doesn’t take time to love.”

“Dearest,” he breathed, “perhaps that is true. As soon as I saw you, I loved you. The first time I looked at you, I said to myself, ‘That is the kind of girl I would like to marry. How can I get to know her? When will there be time to win her? If I go back overseas will there ever come a time for me to be with her? How can she be willing to trust me?’”

“Trust you?” said Dale. “Oh, I trusted you the minute I saw you. But I never dreamed that you would ever love me.”

“And I haven’t even asked you the question that I have been so afraid to ask. Is there someone else in your life that you love? Someone who loves you and has a right to your love? I should have asked you that first.”

“Someone
else
!” laughed Dale, with a sweet little ripple of amusement as she looked up into his face. “Why no! Don’t you know I’ve never had time to love anybody? I’ve never had much time to know boys and go out very often. I was in school, of course, and then there was Grandmother. She began to fail, and I had to be with her whenever I could. I loved Grandmother, you know. But oh, she would have loved you, and she would be so glad to have me love you, glad to know you love me. I think perhaps God will let her know about us.”

Then he drew her closer within his arms again, and they sat quietly listening to the sweet fall sounds of nature. A few birds calling, some purple grackles crying to one another, a rusty-throated cricket rasping sharply in the thicket below them. And every sound seemed to be counting to the moments that were so precious, the moments that they still had together.

But they lived hours during those carefully dealt-out minutes. They touched on many things in their past lives, and the hours chimed dimly from some distant city tower.

And at each hour, realization would come, their hands would clasp closer and their glances would clash sadly.

And then when the distant clock struck a solemn one o’clock, David looked up suddenly and grinned at Dale. “It’s time for mess,” he said brightly. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“Oh, I never realized,” said Dale. “It’s been so wonderful to be with you!”

“You sweetheart!” said David with one of his gentle looks that made Dale feel so protected and beloved.

“But I should have brought a lunch along,” she said, appalled. “I never thought. I lost my head. I was so engaged in planning menus for my relative guests, so I could get away before they came to breakfast. So they wouldn’t know where I had gone. And it never occurred to me I had a social obligation to us. If I had only known you were coming to a wonderful place like this!”

“Ah, but this was
my
party,” said David. “You see, I invited you, so the social part was entirely up to me.”

“But you had no way to get ready a lunch,” said Dale. “A base wouldn’t have facilities.”

“Wouldn’t they?” David said, grinning. “But, you see, I had other facilities besides. Wait till you see.” He reached over to the end of the bench where he had parked his overcoat and pulled out packages from its ample pockets. “What do you think of that? I got those sandwiches on the diner of the train coming up. I found the fruit at a station where we stopped five minutes. And this box of candy I bought in the Washington station. I found these little paper cups there, too, and I discovered the other day that there is a little spring just around the knoll below us here. Wait, I’ll bring the water while you spread out the eats.”

He was gone only a minute or two, and Dale arranged the food on the bench between them as attractively as she could. The sandwiches were in neat paper wrappings. She opened the fruit bag, and there were peaches, pears, two red apples, and two bananas. He seemed to have thought of everything. She smiled to herself in admiration of his cleverness.

Then he appeared between the trees, walking cautiously, two brimming cups of water in each hand, intense attention on his face.

“There!” he said with a relieved sigh. “I didn’t spill any of them. And now, would you like to have some lemonade?”

Reaching into his pocket, he produced a lemon and an envelope of sugar in triumph. “I saved that sugar from my coffee at the base for a week,” he said.

“Oh, how lovely!” cried Dale. “You have thought of everything! This is a real picnic lunch.”

“Yes?” he said comically. “But not as good as the lunch you would have prepared, I know.”

“Oh, but you don’t really know. You’ve never eaten any of my lunches.”

“You’re wrong,” said the soldier positively, with a twinkling grin. “Have you forgotten the cup of hot tea you made and the doughnuts you wrestled for me at the U.S.O.?”

“Oh,” said Dale, a lovely flush flaming over her sweet face. “No. I haven’t forgotten. I loved doing that.”

“And you didn’t know me at all then,” said the officer with satisfaction.

David went and stood over her and, stooping, kissed her forehead. “And you’re mine now. And we feel as if we’d known each other for years.”

“Oh yes!” said Dale softly.

Eventually they got down to earth and managed to eat all the sandwiches and a great deal of the fruit and to drink cups of lemonade.

And then shadows on the grass in front of the bench began to grow long, while they talked and laughed and loved each other with stars in their eyes. And finally they picked up their cups and their paper bags and the banana peels and left the lovely hidden bench behind the hemlocks. They went slowly down the hill hand in hand, knowing that they were going into the world again where there would be no cool green retreat and where they could not stop and kiss. But still as they loitered with their fingers linked together, David’s arm now and again around Dale’s waist, he would stoop in the shadow of some foliage and touch his lips to hers.

At the broad winding road they stopped a moment and turned back, looking up to the sheltered nook where they had been, as if it were somehow a hallowed place.

“It’s been a wonderful day,” said Dale wistfully, almost sorrowfully. “I wish it were just beginning!” And a bit of a sigh escaped from her lips.

“Yes,” said David. “It has. And it’s going to be a wonderful time to remember when I that is, when we are” he hesitated.

“Yes, I know,” said Dale bravely. “I know. Don’t put it into words. We’ll just put the memory of this day into the place where words come that we cannot bear to speak.”

They walked slowly on, keeping to the grassy side of the road where cars would not come too near.

But all too soon the walk was over and they had come to the highway and a taxi.

Seated in the taxi, Dale came to herself enough to ask a few questions. When did his train leave again? How much did he know of his destination, and could he tell her anything or must she just wait and trust? How soon, how often could he write? Oh, there were so many questions, and the afternoon was gone. She ought to have asked them before. There would come a long, lonely time when her heart would be all questions, and no way to ask them.

For answer he smiled. “It’s all right, dearest,” he said. “My train is supposed to leave the station at ten. Shall I take you home first, or can you find your way back alone safely after I leave? Ten o’clock is not late, and I thought I could put you in a taxi before my train comes in.”

“Oh no,” said Dale, “I’m used to going around alone, and ten o’clock is early. Besides, there is a bus that passes the station that comes right up to our street corner. I’m staying, please, until you leave, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s what I hoped you would do. I want to be able to watch you out the train window as we start off. And now, here” he handed her an envelope filled with papers—“inside that envelope you will find all the addresses and the answers to as many questions as I am permitted to answer. It isn’t very much, but I knew you would understand. And I’ll be writing you almost at once after leaving. I couldn’t do otherwise. There are so many other things we haven’t had time to say. After I got my bags packed yesterday, I spent most of the time getting these things together and trying to think of everything that might come up to trouble you after I am gone. I hope I haven’t forgotten anything. But if I have, we’ll be able to write, and you can trust God with it. It’s such a comfort that you know God and are not frivolous like so many girls I’ve met! I’m so glad you’re the kind of girl you are. How I love you for it.”

There were thrilling glances between them, even when they were where they could be overheard and could not talk privately. Dale was conscious of storing the glances away in improvised corners of her memory where she could take them out and exult in them afterward. Perhaps David, too, had visions of a time ahead when he would need such memories to help him through hard days.

He took her to a quiet restaurant where they could talk without interruption and where the food and service were of the best. He had not been idle during his days in the city and had carefully selected this place because he felt that it was to be a memorable night. He wanted everything to be the best for the sake of its memory. After all, it just might happen that it would be the only festive supper they could ever have, at least for a long, long time, and he wanted it to be happy all the way through.

They were not either of them in a mood to be very hungry and at first began to eat indifferently, but after all, they had spent the greater part of the day in the open air in the woods and that made for good appetites. So they soon began to enjoy the wonderful dinner.

“Oh David, this is going to cost a lot,” protested Dale, as he kept on with his ordering.

“I hope it does,” said David with a stubborn grin. “After all, it’s got to stand for all the times I’ll be
wanting
to take you out and can’t in the next weeks, or months, or whatever it is.”

“But you are ordering as if I were a princess.”

“Aren’t you my princess?”

“Oh,” said Dale, putting shy hands up to her crimson cheeks, “I never thought anyone would call me that!”

“But why not?” asked David, watching her with happy eyes. “You are very lovely, you know.”