Not My Will and The Light in My Window (10 page)

“Lady, what an idea!” Chad cried enthusiastically. “Sure, I can get off. I put in a lot of overtime when the engineer was sick, and if he wants me to I’ll put in more
later. I have been wishing we could go but was afraid you’d think you had to work.”

“No, Mrs. Nichols thinks I look tired and has ordered a rest. So—if you can go—the party is on. Oh—” A sudden thought made Eleanor’s face fall. “—your mother won’t expect you home, will she?”

Chad picked up the darning basket that sat nearby and began to play with the spools of cotton. His face was sober and a bit troubled as he replied, “No. She knows I can’t afford midyear trips home. I had a letter today, though, and they want me to come for Christmas if I possibly can. Bob and Marilyn are to be married, and Bob wants me to be best man.”

“Can’t we manage the expense some way?” Eleanor asked quickly. “You really ought to go for the wedding.” She longed to add, “Just let me pay for it,” but knew that was impossible.

Chad was still whirling the spools around his finger. “Ellen, if we can raise the carfare, will you go with me and let me show my family my wife?”

“Oh, I
couldn’t! I
know how you feel, dear. I don’t like this secrecy either. But we agreed, you know, and we’ve gone too far to go back now. I
wish
things were different, but—we can’t tell folks yet.” Her voice was shaky and she upset the basket and spilled the socks all over the floor as she reached for Chad’s hand. “Please, darling, you go without me. Next year I’ll do it. Truly I will. But I just can’t now.”

“Don’t get so frightened, honey. I won’t do a thing against your wishes. But this is final, and you might as well understand it,” he said firmly, kissing the hands clinging imploringly to his. “I don’t get the idea of your being so
upset at the mere mention of going home with me as my wife. But I will not go home anymore without you.”

Ellen’s heart contained a mixture of emotions, but she decided it would be best to let the whole subject drop for the time being. She did not reply but began picking up the scattered contents of the mending basket, and in a minute Chad spoke again.

“There’s something I’ve been intending to tell you. I have a surprise for you. Even though, to the casual observer, you are not supposed to be my wife, I have responsibilities to shoulder, so I have taken out some life insurance. I took out enough to protect you if anything should happen to me. The policy came today. Here it is. You’d better take care of it.”

Ellen opened the large envelope. When she saw the amount of the policy, she was startled and shocked. “Why, you shouldn’t have made it so large,” she cried. “How can you pay it?”

“I wanted it large enough to keep you comfortably if you had to get on without me. It will be hard to pay for a few years, but I sold my sorrel colt to Bob, and that covered the premium for the first year. After that I’ll just have to hustle to meet the payments. Mother has a small policy which would pay for any burial expenses—” He stopped abruptly as he saw her look of terror. “Darling, don’t look like that! We have to talk about things like this sometimes. As I was saying, Mom has Bob and the girls to look after her, but you’re all mine, and I’m going to look after you the best way I know how!”

“I love you more than ever for thinking of this,” Eleanor said, whisking away a tear that had fallen to the
table. “But let’s put the policy away and forget about it. Anyway, if you should die, I’d want to die too!”

“Well, my love, I don’t think you’ll have use for the policy very soon—unless you try too many new dishes on me for Thanksgiving dinner! By the way, I think we can borrow my professor’s old car again. I fixed the starter for him last week, so he’ll probably feel indebted to me. We can load it up with all the ‘makin’s’ of a real feast!”

So the invitation for Christmas was not mentioned again. But Eleanor knew that the matter of the secrecy of their marriage would become increasingly troublesome unless Chad understood once for all that it was not a mere whim on her part that sealed her lips. She resolved that the next time the subject came up, she would tell him of Aunt Ruth’s strange will.

* * *

The day before Thanksgiving was cold, and as Eleanor descended from the streetcar at the corner, a few snowflakes stung her face. Chad had apparently arrived home first, for the familiar old car was parked at the curb, and as she turned in at the walk Chad came through the door with his arms full of bundles.

“It’s about time you arrived, my lady,” he greeted her. “I’ve loaded my suitcase and those cans of cookies and all that stuff you left on the table. Are your comb and toothbrush packed?”

“I’ll be ready in ten minutes. We’d better take our heavy coats. It’s down to twenty degrees now, and that lake can be the
coldest
place.”

Chad carried down Eleanor’s suitcase while she followed with her cameras. They stopped at the market long enough to buy groceries to last through the holidays, then headed toward the lake and the cabin in the woods.

* * *

From beginning to end it was an ideal holiday. The cabin was dark and cold when Ellen and Chad arrived, but a fire was already laid in the fireplace, and in a moment it was snapping and crackling merrily. Then Chad ran downstairs and built a fire in the furnace, and soon the whole house was warm despite the chill wind outside. All night the wind roared about the cottage, and when they wakened it was to a world wrapped in white.

“Oh, Chad, look! Isn’t it grand? Snow for Thanksgiving! I never knew it to come so early before!”

“I like it because it reminds me of last Christmas-only I like it even better now without all the other folks around.”

Eleanor dimpled. “Once or twice I was glad of having a few folks around to shelter me. You courted so fast I was afraid and ran away.”

“Yes, you did—not! You were almost as smitten as I was. You still are a bit peculiar, but I liked you then, and I like you better now—even if you are peculiar.”

“You’re a conceited man, and I … love you,” Eleanor finished with a tone of finality. “Do you realize we’ve been married about two-thirds of a year? It’s time we stopped talking like honeymooners and began to be bored with each other, isn’t it?”

“Lady of the Lake, get me straight on this.” Chad said earnestly, looking straight into the little face, “I didn’t marry you because it seemed the wise and prudent thing to do. I married you because I had lost my head over you. I love you more every day—hence I lose a little more of my head every day. I expect to wind up as a modern Headless Horseman if I stay around you, which I intend to, and so the honeymoon will last as long as we do.”

“You’re sweet.”

“I’m hungry too. Forgive me for introducing such a crass note into this beautiful conversation, but when do we eat, and will it be breakfast or dinner when it arrives?”

“We’ll have breakfast, then go for a hike in the woods. That will give us a good incentive to get dinner.”

After breakfast they donned their heaviest wraps. Chad made a trip to the basement and came back carrying a pair of Mike’s old galoshes, only slightly too large, and something else that Ellen hailed with delight.

“My old coaster! I haven’t seen that sled for years. Oh, what fun we’re going to have!” Then she noticed the galoshes and said, “That gives me an idea. I’m sure Mary must have left a pair around here too.”

A search of the closets yielded a pair of overshoes that were wearable with the toes stuffed full of paper. Chad also found an old leather coat of Mike’s and a cap that made him look like Daniel Boone. Ellen seized a discarded knitted scarf of Mary’s and a pair of fur mittens she had once owned. Then together they floundered out into the wonderful white world.

Dragging the sled behind them, they climbed to the
hilltop. There Chad sped down the snow on the side facing the meadow and made a slide that led down over the slope almost to the road beyond. Again and again they sat on the sled and flew down the hill, laughing at an occasional spill in the snow and rejoicing in the clear, cold air.

“I used to think this was fun, even though I had to slide alone,” panted Eleanor. “But I didn’t really know what fun was, I can see. There isn’t any fun alone at all.”

“Another thing that’s no fun,” said Chad meditatively, gazing at the blue sky, “is starving to death. Once there was a man in the Russian wilderness—”

“All right, all right,” Eleanor laughed. “We’ll go back and get dinner. I know a hint when I hear one.”

Chad pulled Eleanor on the sled all the way back to the house and spilled her into the big drift by the door, after which he pulled her out, brushed off the snow, and kissed the cheeks rosy with cold.

“Now for that much-heralded dinner, my love. I hope it doesn’t take as long as Mom’s Thanksgiving dinners do. She always begins about four-thirty in the morning.”

“It won’t,” Ellen assured him. “The chicken—excuse me, the turkey—has already been roasted, and I have only to warm it up, according to the man in the delicatessen. The potatoes will cook in half an hour, and all the other things come out of cans. Our Pilgrim ancestors would be shocked, but our feast will suit us, so let them worry!”

Chad set the table, opened the boxes of cookies and cakes Eleanor had baked, emptied the canned cranberry sauce into a festive cut, glass dish, and set out butter and pickles while Eleanor made salad and
prepared vegetables. As a finishing touch, Chad cut out a magazine picture of a pumpkin pie and gave it the place of honor, “in memory of the pumpkin pie that isn’t here.”

When the potatoes were mashed, the gravy thickened just right, and the chicken and rolls taken from the oven, Ellen placed them all on the table with an air of triumph and said, “I don’t care if most of it did come out of cans; it’s a dinner to be proud of, and I think it calls for a real thanksgiving.” She spoke lightly, but Chad answered in a serious tone.

“It does. But I can’t express it with each of us sitting at an end of this great table. Let’s kneel here and tell the Lord we really are thankful for all He has done for us.”

So they knelt by the window seat, and Chad prayed. It was the first long prayer Eleanor had ever heard him utter, and it gave her a glimpse of the yearning in his heart for a close walk with God for both of them. There was gratitude, also, for the love that encircled them and had permitted them to live and love and do their work together, and there was a petition for help and blessing on their future road.

When Chad said, “Amen,” and Eleanor echoed it softly, there were tears in the eyes of both. And while the meal was less merry than it might have been, there was real joy instead. It was a true Thanksgiving dinner.

After the dishes were all washed, they sat on the davenport before the fireplace and dreamed dreams of the life that lay ahead of them after school years were done. It was pleasant to be here with no pressing work to hold them apart, with the cold and snow outside, and inside the crackle of the logs that burned to make them cozy.
Years later Eleanor looked back on that evening as symbolic of all the happiness that life can hold.

Friday and Saturday were days of rare fellowship and fun. They walked through the winter woods or stayed in the house, just as fancy dictated. They delved into the old books or sat again by the fire in quiet, intimate conversation. During those hours they learned to know each other better than the hours in the apartment had ever permitted them to do. Eleanor perceived that Chad’s strong spiritual nature was the result of early training by devout parents, and although she could not remember her own parents, she found herself acutely aware of her great loss.
If they had lived, it might have been easier for me to know Chad’s Savior,
she thought.

Chad, on the other hand, learned to understand how years of repression and a lack of youthful companionship had affected Eleanor. He saw that her failure to meet him spiritually was due largely to early training, and his heart yearned unspeakably to help her. He longed to talk with her about the sermon of the previous Sunday night and its effect on her, but she did not seem ready to discuss it. Chad was disappointed but not discouraged. He felt assured that the time for her acceptance of Christ was near and that his duty for the present was to wait and pray.

Sunday morning was bright and warm, with the snow melting rapidly in the springlike air. It seemed just the day for a drive, so Chad suggested that they visit a church in Meadville, thirty miles away. It was late when they arrived at the church. They slipped into a back pew just as the preacher was rising to begin his sermon.

Eleanor’s first thought as she saw him was,
You’re just
too handsome to be true. I wonder if that wave in your hair is natural.
She was ashamed of this flippant thought and glanced at Chad, wondering whether he had seen her smile. But he was frowning intently at the preacher, so Eleanor settled to listen.

She soon forgot the preacher’s wavy hair and Grecian nose, however, as she became enthralled by his message, entitled “A Bond Servant of Jesus Christ.”

He described the ceremony whereby a Hebrew slave, gaining his freedom after years of bondage, and wishing to signify his desire to become a lifelong bond servant of his beloved master, had his ear pierced through with an awl so that he should thereafter be recognized as belonging to him.

This he likened to the life of the Christian. Christ has bought him with his own life on the cross of Calvary, but it remains for the Christian to yield possession of his life and his will to the Master who loves him.

“Paul was glad to call himself such a bond servant,” he said. “Peter and James and John lived and died for Him. Stephen was stoned to death for Him. Hundreds of His bond servants were thrown to lions, thousands of others were burned at the stake, and who can number those who were beheaded rather than leave His service? During the intervening centuries a host of His servants have sacrificed and toiled and borne ridicule that His work might be done effectively. Whitefield, Wesley, Moody, and Finney later stirred the crowds on His behalf, reminding them of the One they had forgotten. And can we forget what has been done on the mission field by men and women like Livingstone, Carey, Judson, Paton, Hudson Taylor, and Mary Slessor, who
counted it a joy to give service unto death that His gospel might be given to all nations?