GI Brides (84 page)

“There, there, Blythe! Don’t be hard on her. I really feel sorry for her, and it must be pretty hard on her to have to give you up and get Anne Houghton in your place.”

“Oh Mother, you’re the limit!” laughed Blythe. “First you take to your bed because your neighbor has worn you out weeping and wailing, and then you begin to weep for her because she can’t have the daughter-in-law she wants. Well, you’ll have to excuse me. I can’t find any cure for your ailment but to go to sleep and wake up in the morning to find something more interesting to think about. Now, I’m tucking you up the way I do my patients, and I want you to go to sleep at once. I’ll be telephoning Susan after a while to find out if you are better, and if you’re not I’m telephoning Dad. Understand?”

But Blythe went back to the hospital with a worry on her mind. After all, there had been dark circles under her mother’s eyes, and surely they were not here because she, too, was troubled that her daughter was not going to be married to Dan Seavers. Well, so that was that, but definitely Blythe felt that her mother had been overworking. For Blythe had been in the hospital long enough now to recognize that look of pallor, that tiredness in the face she loved, and tonight she must call up and talk to Dad about it. Dad would do something. He would perhaps take Mother away for a rest or something, and let her have a good time, although there weren’t so many good times to be had in these wartimes. Also, a woman who was used to organizing committees and carrying on successful drives could not easily switch to just good times either. Dinner parties and clubs and such things would be a letdown after the hard work her mother had been doing.

That evening the invitations to Dan’s wedding arrived, and there was another complication. Mother would say that of course they must all go to that wedding. It would be just too conspicuous if they stayed away, and everybody would say that Blythe was jealous if she wasn’t there. Blythe had been so much with Dan.

Not that Blythe minded going to the wedding, but she knew her mother would mind it keenly if they did not go, and she and Dan’s mother would sit glumly and let their eyes say to one another what they could not let their lips say. It certainly would be good if her mother could be away at the time of that wedding. But she didn’t see how it could possibly be managed. The wedding was so soon. Of course her mother would overrule them all and they would go, with satisfied smiles on their faces, and well-bred gestures. And there would be at least two of those smiles that would be
real,
hers and her father’s. For she was sure Dad hadn’t ever wanted her to marry Dan, and certainly, she never had desired it.

So Blythe called up her father and urged him to get Mother to rest, and then the next day when she had time off she went to the store and bought the most expensive, most exquisite piece of table decoration for a wedding present that she had seen in these wartimes. It was a centerpiece of crystal in the form of a beautiful ship, delicate in its workmanship as a crystal cobweb, yet perfect in all its details, standing on a mirrored sea, and arranged for lighting. There could not have been anything more lovely, and Blythe was pleased that she could find something that was so beautiful and so seasonable and yet had no possible connection with anything that she and Dan had ever done together. He couldn’t possibly torture his mind into a sentimental meaning that she might have had in mind in sending it. She arranged for it to be sent at once, and then with a great sigh of relief put Dan and his bride out of her mind. If her mother decided later that they should go to the wedding, why, that was all right with her, of course, if her duties at the hospital didn’t prevent it, but that would be to be discussed the next time she went home.

So instead of bringing depression to Blythe by marrying Dan Seavers, as Anne had hoped it would, the wedding was settling into a normal, pleasant event that didn’t make the least bit of difference to her.

Blythe didn’t get home again to talk with her mother for several days, but when she did she found that her mother was most determined that they would all go to the wedding, and that Blythe should have a new dress, if possible. But Blythe declared that she had no time at all to go and select a dress. If her mother wanted to do it, all right, but she simply couldn’t get away, not if she was to ask for leave for the wedding. It was simply impossible.

Then the question of the wedding present came up, and Blythe described the crystal ship elaborately and saw that it entirely pleased her mother.

But she saw also that her mother did not look at all well, and she resolved that as soon as this wedding was over she simply must manage to get her away somewhere to rest. She would talk to her father the very next day.

So Blythe went to her night work in the hospital and put the wedding and everything concerning it out of her mind. She didn’t want to go to it, but she was going of course, and it was silly for her to care. She had a strange, uneasy feeling that in some way Anne would try to be disagreeable, and she wasn’t altogether sure but Dan might still be angry enough to mortify her in some way. However, whatever came would come and would pass, and what did it matter? She didn’t love Dan, she couldn’t have loved him ever, and she was glad he was going to be married and go away.

Then there came a warm, happy feeling to her heart that there was someone she did love, someone she had a right to love, and who loved her. While she couldn’t think of being married to him because he might never return to claim her, still she felt her life belonged to Charlie, and she was happy in the thought of him.

But quite early on that wedding morning everything changed. There came a telephone message for Blythe at the hospital from her father. Her mother was very sick and it would be necessary for her to come home at once. There followed days of anxiety when it was not sure whether the mother would pull through or not, and because nurses were so exceedingly scarce, and because the hospitals were so overcrowded, it seemed best for Blythe to give up her course of training and come home to take care of her mother in this terrible emergency. Of course that would have been Blythe’s wish anyway, and she was proud and pleased to be able to take over her mother’s case, with the assistance of a part-time nurse after the first few trying days, when they were able to get two skilled nurses, a few hours at a time.

Wedding? Why, they had no thought nor memory of the wedding, and at the hour when, if she had followed the dictates of Dan Seavers, she would have been marching down a church aisle to be married to him, Blythe was standing at the bedside of her darling mother, counting her pulse, watching the quiet breaths that came so intermittently, trying to look brave when she saw the anguish in her dear father’s eyes. No, Blythe did not go to the Seavers’s wedding, and neither did any of her family, and the best thing about it was that her dear mother didn’t have to know anything about it at all, not at least until it was far over and no one could blame them for not being there. Everybody knew how very low poor Mrs. Bonniwell was, and no one would think of expecting any of them to leave their home.

So Anne Houghton had no opportunity to gloat over Blythe or give one single triumphant toss of her head or glint of her eye. Anne had chosen her path and would walk down it in pride, but not with any envious eyes turned in her direction.

So the organ rolled and the flowers drooped and the young men and maidens in uniforms or colorful chiffons went carefully, measuredly up the aisle; but Blythe was not there to see.

“Why, where is Blythe Bonniwell?” asked someone of the bride as the guests went down the line. “Surely she is here somewhere, isn’t she? I wanted to ask her a question about the work in the hospital. Has she gone down the line yet?”

Anne shrugged.

“I really wouldn’t remember,” she said haughtily. “With all this mob here how could I tell if one certain girl went by?”

“Why, certainly she’s here,” spoke up the bridegroom. It wasn’t believable that she hadn’t come when all this show had been started just to impress her and make her understand what she had lost. “She accepted the invitation, didn’t she, Anne?”

“I believe she did,” said Anne, with utmost indifference.

“Well, then, of course she’s here,” said Dan.

“
Why
‘of course’?” said Anne amusedly. “Personally, I’d be surprised if she came.”

“I guess you don’t realize she’s one of my very oldest friends. Of course she’s here,” said the bridegroom fiercely.

“It may be so,” said Anne with another shrug. “I don’t recall having seen her. But then, she isn’t one of
my
very oldest friends.” And Anne gave a little disagreeable laugh.

Dan motioned to a servant.

“Find Miss Bonniwell and bring her here,” he demanded arrogantly.

“Aren’t you making her rather conspicuous?” said the bride of the hour. “But then she probably likes that sort of thing. That’s likely why she does it.”

Mrs. Felton turned sharply from talking with Mrs. Seavers and answered Anne:

“Why, is it possible you hadn’t heard?” she asked mildly as from superior knowledge. “Didn’t you know that Mrs. Bonniwell was taken very ill this morning? Blythe was called home from the hospital to nurse her mother till another nurse could be found.”

“Oh! Really?” said Anne affectedly, with that haughty air of discounting the news. “But I suppose that’s nothing but an alibi, isn’t it? It might have been embarrassing for her to come, you know.”

Mrs. Felton eyed the bride thoughtfully, like a cat contemplating homicide, and then she bared her nice little teeth and pounced:

“No,” she said gravely, “it’s not an alibi. I just met the doctor coming out as I was coming in here, and I stopped to ask how she was. He says she is very low. They are not sure she will live through the night.”

Dan turned with a whirl on her.

“What’s that? Who are you talking about? Who is not expected to live through the night, Mrs. Felton?”

Mrs. Felton looked the bridegroom over sharply.

“I was speaking of Mrs. Bonniwell,” she said coldly. “You knew she was taken very ill this morning, didn’t you? The doctor told me just now that she may not live through the night. ‘She’s a very sick woman, Mrs. Felton,’ he said. ‘You see, she has been going too hard with her war work and all, and not stopping for proper rest.’”

“You mean that was
Bonny
they were talking about? Do you mean that was Bonny the doctor said might not live through the night? If that’s so, why didn’t somebody tell me? Why, she’s one of my best friends. I ought to run right over there and see her.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake!” said the bride. “Can’t you shut up? You’ve had too many drinks. Don’t make a spectacle of yourself, whatever you do.”

“But Bonny is sick, Anne, and she’s one of my best friends!”

“Keep still, I tell you,” said the bride in a low tone. “It’s probably just an act. Can’t you see? She would choose a time like this to get sick when she could take the attention away from us. This is some of that Blythe’s doings, and I don’t mean mebbe. I certainly will get even with her one of these days.”

But Anne had her hands full that night to keep her tipsy husband within bounds, for constantly he kept returning to the subject, and it was plainly evident that it had greatly upset him to know that the Bonniwell family were permanently out of the picture, with a reason that everybody but himself seemed to have known all about.

“This is
awful
!” he said, more than once, as he mopped his forehead and cast his eyes about to be sure that Blythe wasn’t there somewhere.

But at last the festivities drew to a close, the bride retired to change to traveling garments, the guests assembled and made ready to catch the bride’s bouquet and pelt the newlyweds with rice and rose petals, and Dan’s mother, still searching angrily to find a Bonniwell in the crowd, gave a hopeful glance at her husband and thought that it was almost time to go home and weep some more. It was done. This great awful farce was over, and she could never again lift up her head proudly, for there would always be that terrible daughter-in-law!

Then the going away was over, and the guests who did not remain to dance went out into the cool moonlight to pass that quiet Bonniwell house among its trees, with its night lights burning and the doctor’s car standing ominously outside the door. And then some of those guests looked at one another said, “Why, it must have been true. I thought they were telling it about as a joke, didn’t you? Anne didn’t seem to make much of it.”

And then they walked by with more reverent tread. In the morning, with shocked voices, they called up the doctor, whose only response was, “She is still living, that is all.”

T
hen began days of tense anxiety for Blythe and her father, day after day the beloved one hanging between life and death, and death seemingly waiting impatiently at the door to take her.

Mr. Bonniwell spent much of the time in his home, even after the doctor gave a hope of recovery, for the hope was so slight that death was still hovering near, and the tide might turn at any hour. The business could practically carry itself now if they only had their full number of trained workers. But of course, like all other businesses, their workers were few, so many having gone into the war, or war work. But business or no business, Blythe’s father hovered very near the wife of his youth while any danger threatened. So Blythe was not alone in her anxiety, and during that time of anxious waiting the father and daughter grew very close to one another and often opened their shy hearts to speak of the things of eternity, which had up until now been a closed topic so far as the family conversation was concerned. And often, when one or the other had been absent from the sickroom for a little while and would return, it was not unusual for the one who had stayed there to be found sitting with bowed head and closed eyes. They came to understand that this meant an attitude of prayer, and that the prayer was an earnest petition for the life of the dear one. This prayer was gradually modified to include a clause, that at least the mother might live to know the Lord as they were beginning to know Him.