Read Not My Will and The Light in My Window Online
Authors: Francena H. Arnold
Not My Will and The Light in My Window (59 page)
Dear Stan:
I wish I didn’t have to write this to you, but the thing has to be faced, and this is the only way I know to do it. It wouldn’t work, Stan, honestly it wouldn’t. I’m not the kind of girl you need, and if you knew all about me you’d realize I’m not the kind you want. I wish I could be a different sort of girl. I have tried, and I think I have made some progress. I know I love the Lord better than I ever did, and I hope to do something with my life that will be a testimony for Him. But I can’t let any man—and especially not you, Stan—be handicapped with the unfortunate personality that I know Hope Thompson to be. I couldn’t stand to accept love and then lose it, and it just couldn’t last. All my life the things I have longed for have been snatched away, and I’m not going to risk more hurt.
Please don’t think I doubt you, for I don’t. But I do doubt myself. So please forget me. By the time you come back to the Institute I shall try to be gone, and wherever I go I shall remember you as the best friend I ever had. I shall pray that someday you will find the right girl to bring you happiness.
Please remember me as your friend.
Hope
The answer came before she thought it possible.
Dear Hopeless!
So
you’re
back again, are you? I thought you and Groucho and the rest of your ilk had gone forever. I guess you will have to tell Dr. Stan all about it, and maybe just getting it off your chest will help some.
When first I read that letter I was almost sore at you. It didn’t make any sense at all. It was just plain “baloney,” to quote some of my Sherman Street pals. But when I read it the next time it tugged a bit at my heart, and by the time I’d read it a dozen times, it was pretty hard for me to refrain from hopping the next train. I’m not half so downcast as you probably think me. I found lots of things to encourage me. Such phrases as “and especially not you, Stan” and “the things I’ve longed for” told me that you aren’t entirely untouched by my charms. Only the necessity of my presence here keeps me from coming at once to tell you what a flop you are as a rejecter.
Hope, honey, I can’t come to you. Clare and Dirk are home at last, but I’m still a captive. Dad has five daughters but only one son, and that one has to be on duty twenty-four hours a day until things are better. So
please, please, please
do this for me.
I’ve known ever since I met you that you’re all tied up with some sort of an inhibition. I didn’t major in psychology for nothing. Some place back in your childhood there was something that left a scar, something that frightened and hurt you. Won’t you sit down and write it all out to me? If I were there we’d go out to the lake shore some day and sit on a stone slab, and you’d confess or I’d duck you! You are afraid of life, with a senseless unreasoning fear that is unworthy of the fine Christian girl I know you to be. You’ve repressed emotions until they have become poison. You have to get it out of your system, and who is so safe a confessor as “Uncle Stan”? I can assure you that no one in the world cares so much or will hear you so understandingly or judge you so lovingly.
As I said before, I can’t come to you without harming Dad. Nevertheless, if you won’t write and tell me what it’s all about, I’m coming anyway. I’m not asking this of you just out of idle curiosity. I know that the only way to get rid of shadows is to let in the light. If you’ll open up your soul’s windows I’ll guarantee to furnish love enough to drive out the shadows. Just now you are a confused child, afraid to let love come near you. But you are going to wake
up someday, and I sure want to be there when you do. I used to watch you when you didn’t know I was looking, and I caught glimpses of a beautiful woman that I want to know better.
I’m telling you again that I love you more than you can comprehend. After I get all the kinks out of your disposition I expect to spend the rest of my life proving that love to you. I will be waiting patiently, or otherwise, for the confession.
Stan
As Hope read this letter, a desire came to her to do just the thing he asked. She had kept her fears, her loneliness, and her heartache to herself so many years that it would be very hard to open her heart now. Yet Stan’s understanding sympathy made her want to lay aside the barriers and tell him all. Perhaps when she got it written she would not have the courage to send it, but she would write it anyway. She could burn it if she decided not to send it.
After Hope had started, it was easy to write. So sure was she of Stan’s understanding that she felt a freedom of expression that she had never known before. She was so desirous of making her stand plain to him that she held back nothing. The sorrow of her mother’s death, the obsession of stepmother fear that had made her father’s marriage such a fearful thing to her, the horror that came to her when she inadvertently discovered that even Daddy was not her own, the years when she worked to discharge the obligation she owed, feeling all the time that she was an outsider and wanted only because she was needed—all these she told. She recounted the story of her love and trust in Jerry and her shock on discovering that he was not true to her.
Don’t think I’m worrying about him or grieving for him, for I am not. I am even glad that he and Grace are to be married. Even if he were free and came to me I could never care for him again—not ever! I want you to believe that, Stan. My ideals have changed in the past year, and he doesn’t fit them any more.
It’s myself I doubt, Stan. I don’t think I could ever trust myself enough to risk trying to make anyone else happy. I have learned from watching Phil and Eleanor these past months how wonderful married life can be when things are right. No other thing would ever satisfy me, but I’m afraid to risk trying to achieve it.
How could I know if it were real love? Daddy thought he loved Mother, but when she was gone he forgot her and married Mother Bess. If Mother had lived, he might have found out that he didn’t love her. Then too, if I were wrong once about loving a man, I could be wrong again. Or, if I really had loved him, how could I forget so easily? Life is such a complex affair that I don’t think I can ever be sure of anything.
You’re the best friend I have ever had, Stan. I have never been able to tell this to anyone else. I value your friendship so much that I don’t like to risk hurting you. Please remember me as a friend and try to forget that you ever wanted any other relationship. It just wouldn’t work.
Stan’s answer to that letter was prompt.
This discussion is tabled until such time as I can come in person and do some persuading. I am going to personally supervise the opening of some of your soul’s windows to let in the light. You’ve had the shades drawn too long. More of that later.
I went house hunting today. When I bring you here to live, I want a house all ready for you. Alyce and her family live with Dad, and I think that’s enough for one house. So, as I said, I went house hunting. It isn’t so simple as it sounds. This isn’t a large town, and all the houses seem to be filled. But I’ll find something. You just be getting your hope chest ready.
It was useless to argue with him, so Hope did not try. When she wrote, she filled her letters with news of the Institute and left personal matters out. Each letter from Stan was full of fresh assurance and plans.
Went to the country today. Would you like to live on a farm? I’m no farmer, but you are, and you could do the plowing and corn husking while I plied my trade as a banker.
And—
Would you rather live in a chicken coop or in an abandoned root cellar? Those are the only things I can find that aren’t occupied. I think we could be very happy in either. I would always try to see that you got the best root or the most comfortable roost.
And one day—
I’ve found it! It’s an old house just at the edge of town. It doesn’t look like much now, but when we get it remodeled it will be a honey. We have just been practicing all these months at the Institute. When we turn our talents and abilities loose on our own home the world will see something! How’s the hope chest coming?
In early June Billy’s parents came back to the city, and a week later the trustees met at the Institute to decide just what was to be done with the buildings. The next morning after devotions, Phil and Eleanor laid a plan for the summer before Hope.
“This is going to be no place for queens and princesses this summer,” said Phil. “That fire was just what was needed to start a big ball rolling here. The trustees decided yesterday to make us completely over. The church is to be cleaned and redecorated above, the basement remodeled for the nursery and kindergarten. (I can see Billy’s fine Spencerian hand in those plans.) The old barn is to be made over for the carpenter and machine shops. This house will have a new furnace, and the second floor will be an apartment for Billy and Ben and a convalescent ward for Ben’s patients. Benny really wasted no time in getting on the good side of his prospective father-in-law! Katie and Tom’s apartment is to be moved to the third floor, and the basement will become the household arts department. Isn’t that better than we dared dream even on New Year’s Eve?”
“How can we work with so much building and changing?” queried Hope.
“We won’t be able to do much. Romilda will keep the nursery open, with the help of some of the big girls. The rest of the work will have to be discontinued until fall. So I’m discharging you two girls for the summer.”
As the realization of his meaning came to her, Hope’s face showed her dismay. Eleanor hastened to reassure her.
“Don’t be alarmed, Hope. I have another place for us. Chad and I are going home for the summer, and we want you to go with us.”
“Oh, I couldn’t! Your mother doesn’t know me, and—”
“No, but she knows
about
you, and she needs help on the farm during the canning and harvesting season, and she asked me to bring you.”
“Could I be of use? Is there work enough to keep me busy?”
“Indeed there is. I’ve seen the time when Marilyn, Connie, Mary Lou, and I were all of us busy as bees, to say nothing of Mother and Mrs. Hunt. Mother will keep you busy enough to satisfy you, I promise you. Now don’t try to think up another excuse.”
“I won’t. I’d love to go.”
So on a bright June morning, they loaded into the Kings’ car, Hope and Chad in the front seat and Eleanor with the bags and boxes in the back. Phil packed them in and told them good-bye.
“I know I don’t need to tell you to drive carefully,” he said to Hope. “You know that you have all my dearest possessions and future hopes in this car. I’m trusting you with priceless treasure. God’s hand is with yours on the wheel. Good-bye, son. Mind Mother, and help Grandma, and have a good time with Sport. That’s all you need to do.”
He turned to the backseat and leaned through the window to give Eleanor a last kiss. “Good-bye, little mother. Be good and take care of my one and only wife. I’ll be up in August to greet my snub-nosed little daughter—I hope,” he whispered.
I
t was good to be in the country again. The clean, fresh air, the smell of the pine woods, the scent of hay fields, the pungent odor of vegetation when the dew lay heavy on it were a pleasant contrast to the smoke-laden air of Sherman Street. Hope had always loved farm life, and she soon fitted into the Stewart regime as if she belonged there. There was a vast difference between her grandfather’s melon and vegetable acres and this large, modern dairy farm. Yet, she was quick and adaptable and soon was at home in any department, helping in the kitchen, the barn, the garden, and the cannery. She could lend a hand with the cleaning and the laundry, or with the care of the patients in the small convalescent hospital that Mother Stewart conducted on the second floor of the big farm house.
Chad had talked so much of life on the farm and told so many stories about the members of the family that Hope felt she knew them before she reached the farm. She was at home among them at once. Mother Stewart was all that Hope had ever dreamed of in the way of motherhood. Mary Lou was shy and quiet, but responded quickly to Hope’s friendly manner, and the two became close friends as they worked together. Before Hope had been there a week the entire family, including Marilyn and Bob, who lived on the other side of the orchard, seemed like old acquaintances.
Hope went berrying with Chad and Mary Lou and Bob’s little Patty. She took small Bobby for rides on her strong shoulders. She helped to get Chad’s old crib up from the basement and
cleaned it in preparation for Connie, Dick, and wee Paul. She seemed indefatigable, and Mother Stewart wondered audibly how they had ever got along without her.
Eleanor, watching her, was glad to see the enjoyment Hope received from every phase of country life. Nevertheless, she noticed also that the shadow that had come again at the time of Billy and Ben’s engagement was still in Hope’s dark eyes. She did not know what had occurred between Hope and Stan before he left the Institute but had known all winter that Stan was much interested in this strange and temperamental girl and guessed that their relationship had reached some crisis. Loving Hope as she did, and sensitive to her every mood, Eleanor prayed much during those summer weeks that the barriers that seemed to hold Hope back from happiness would be swept away. Eleanor could do nothing but pray, for when she tried to draw near to the girl and offer the help that was needed, she was met by the same wall of reticence that had always been between them.
Hope herself, while enjoying this vacation from the city’s noise and heat, had not left her problems behind her. When the day’s work was done and they gathered on the front porch for a restful hour before going to bed, she found herself out of tune with the family fun and fellowship. As always, she was an outsider. Eleanor tried to draw her into the group, but she would usually plead weariness and slip away to her own room where she would lie and think of the happy group she had just left and wonder what it would be like to really be one of them.
She would picture Eleanor and Mother Stewart together in the swing, and the old surge of bitterness would come to the top again.
Anyone
who had such a mother as that all her life, a mother who just overflowed with love, couldn’t help but be happy. She loved Eleanor and certainly did not want her to lose any of the joy that was such an integral part of her, but she herself felt infinitely older and wiser than the lighthearted Eleanor. Hope could not dwell on her unhappiness too long, however, for sleep always interrupted her musings. A new day brought work and pleasant companionship that pushed the shadows into the background.