“I don’t care. People know I have a, an, um, boyfriend.”
Elisabeth hated taking Will from his many jobs, even for the few minutes it took to move her into a room at the end of the hall on the second floor. Shabby as the house appeared outside, the inside was in the midst of Will’s remodeling. Everything worked. Plumbing. Electricity. Heat.
That night Elisabeth penned a note of thanks and information to Mr. Beck, then wrote a long letter to Ben. She concluded, “It would mean so much to me if I could tell Will of our betrothal. I trust him, and as his classmate and lifelong chum, I think it’s important for him to know our intentions.”
Ben’s reply arrived a week later: “My precious Elisabeth, I must urge you to keep our secret. If you trust Will, I know I would too, but I hardly know him. There’s nothing I’d rather do than tell the world of my love for you and yours for me. But you know most so-called secrets are merely things everyone is told one at a time.
“There’s a reason for my reticence. My orders have arrived. My assignment is so clandestine that military censors will read this letter. I am allowed to tell you only that I will not be stateside. I shall write you at every opportunity and you may write me at the military post office below, though there is no guarantee how quickly or regularly I will see your mail.
“I will count the days until God allows us to be together as man and wife. All my love, Ben.”
Elisabeth shuddered. She prayed for him, carefully avoiding seeking word from God whether she had made the right decision to accept his proposal. She loved him more than ever, and while she was aware of the many Scriptures that called worry sin, it became a sin she committed around the clock.
A few days later Elisabeth read in the Three Rivers Tribune the text of President Wilson’s address to Congress of January 8, wherein he reminded them and the nation that the United States was not technically one of the Allies. He also reiterated that General Pershing had been told to keep a separate and distinct identity for his force. Yet Wilson also put forth fourteen points for peace, ideals that seemed designed to strengthen the cause of the Allies.
So the U.S. was knee-deep in the war after all, Elisabeth told herself. This was the war to end all wars, but it seemed ludicrous to send young men in the prime of their lives to fight thousands of miles from home. The cause seemed just, and, she asked herself, who else should go? Surely not younger men. Will was exempted not only because he was still in high school, but also because he was the only male child of a widow. Both his brothers-in-law, despite being husbands and fathers, fearfully awaited assignment. Art Childs and several others from church were already overseas.
Taking her cue from the relentless Will Bishop, Elisabeth filled her days. Mr. Beck banked the modest check from the painful sale of her childhood home for her, and she noted curiously a new family moving in just a few weeks later. She prayed they would cherish it as she had. Where Aunt Agatha relocated, Elisabeth had no idea.
Elisabeth bided her time, waiting to get through high school and marry Ben. She wrote him nearly every day, sending her letters to a central military post office as directed. As weeks passed and she heard nothing from him, she worried more. If absence was the true test of love, she passed. She loved him and longed for him more every day.
Elisabeth rose early each day, knowing that if she did not read her Bible and pray then, she would be too exhausted later. She volunteered to help Mrs. Bishop in the kitchen, which meant setting the table for between seven and ten people every morning and helping cook breakfast. Mrs. Bishop proved wary and fearful, shyer than Will had ever been. She rarely smiled and looked as if she believed everyone was out to take advantage of her. She did not understand why Elisabeth wanted to help and often reminded her that “this doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay your rent.”
Then it was off to school in Will’s truck. As he predicted, people began to ask if they were an item. Both assured everyone they weren’t and the speculation soon stopped. Word spread that Elisabeth had exercised her freedom upon her eighteenth birthday and sold her house. That she sold it to her own aunt, lost her shirt, and saw it sold again right out from under her somehow never got out. The news and the gossip moved away with Aunt Agatha. Ironically, Elisabeth earned a reputation for shrewdness for what she and her lawyer agreed was the most foolish thing she had ever done.
In a vain attempt to take her mind off Ben, she busied herself in school and church like never before. Her work at Snyder’s often extended to closing time and locking up. Will seemed to have a sixth sense about her schedule. Often—never with her arranging it—he was waiting in the truck when she was finished work or was leaving church.
She still did a lot of walking, because he was busier than ever too. But he seemed an agent of God when she needed one most. If she felt energetic, she walked home. But when the stress of her loneliness or schoolwork or work in general caught up with her, her ride was often waiting.
She always expressed her heartfelt thanks, and Will, to his credit, never made her feel obligated. Knowing he would never accept a tip, Elisabeth tried to recompense him by rounding up her rent payment. But her bill was always lessened by the same amount the next time. Finally she confronted him.
“Will, you’re being too kind. You must allow me to compensate you for all the extra trouble.”
“It’s no trouble, Elspeth,” he would say. “I’m happy to do it.”
“But I feel bad. I—”
“Listen to me,” he said. “When I say I’m happy to do it, I mean I would be unhappy if you didn’t let me. If it helps you out, that makes me feel good.”
Impulsively, Elisabeth embraced him. What a dear, dear friend! He had become a man before his time. Will did not return the fleeting hug, but she wondered what Ben would think. She wouldn’t want him embracing a friend of the opposite sex, even without romantic feelings.
After a month without word from Ben, Elisabeth wrote his mother. Mrs. Phillips responded, “We have heard nothing either, dear, and the local military office tells us this is normal. They say no news is good news. We sure want to meet you, however, having heard so many wonderful things about you from Benjamin. Is there any chance you might come up this way, or might we meet you somewhere?”
Elisabeth saw not one open day on her calendar for months and so kept her reply encouraging but nebulous.
By March, despite her determination, Elisabeth became nearly beside herself with worry. She wanted to know where Ben was and that he was all right. Surely someone could tell her. She fired off letters to every official she could think of, receiving kind and timely replies that either evaded the question or assured her she would get word in due time. “No news is good news,” she read over and over. Well, it wasn’t good news to her.
Like many other men in town, Will’s brothers-in-law worked at the Sheffield Car Company plant, assembling railroad cars. They largely ignored Elisabeth, and their wives barely spoke to her. It was as if they were jealous that their children were smitten by her. Will’s sisters were several years older than Elisabeth, and after marrying “outside the faith,” as their mother said, they left the church as well. It was clear the couples resented having to raise their broods in their mother-in-law’s boarding house, and all they talked about was getting their own places someday.
Elisabeth played with Will’s nieces and nephews every chance she got, teaching them songs and telling them Bible stories. One of the brothers complained, but Elisabeth responded by offering to take the children to Sunday school every week. For whatever danger the parents saw in her filling the kids’ heads with religion, the idea of Sunday mornings to themselves sold them on the idea.
The kids loved piling into the back of Will’s truck, and Elisabeth saw yet another surprising side of him. He was wonderful with the children—patient, loving, kind. He took them to Snyder’s to pick her up after work one Saturday and bought them all phosphates. One ordered one too many. When he leaned in the window at a stop sign to tell Will he felt sick,
he proved it all over Will and the cab of the truck. Not only did Will not respond with revulsion or anger, but he also quickly cleaned up the boy and the truck, all the while comforting him and telling him it was all right.
By May, Elisabeth was exhausted from her schedule and from worry over Ben. She wrote the War Department in Washington, demanding “information on his well-being if not on his location. If you do not want a determined fiancée making a personal excursion to Europe to find her man, you’ll respond posthaste. Most sincerely yours, a loyal and praying citizen, Elisabeth Grace LeRoy.”
Ten days later she received a telegram from the War Department: “MISS LE ROY: BE INFORMED PVT. PHILLIPS ASSIGNED EUROPE. SPECIFIC LOCATION CLASSIFIED. NO REPORTED ACTION OR CASUALTIES. HAS RECEIVED YOUR MAIL. TRIP ILL ADVISED.”
Elisabeth had coerced a response from the lumbering government. To both her bemusement and consternation, the telegram had arrived COD.
She wondered why he was receiving her mail and she was getting none of his. Had he written? Might he have lost interest? Come to his senses? Had a word from God? Dare she pray about the same? Not until she checked back with his parents.
She wrote them again, telling of her experience with the War Department. “That’s a relief,” his mother responded. “You’re very resourceful. We didn’t know where to turn except to the Lord. We have received no mail from Ben either.”
It was Elisabeth’s turn for relief. If he had changed his mind, he certainly would have told his parents, wouldn’t he? But parents of the servicemen at church were getting letters, some even from overseas. What must Ben be involved in? She scoured the newspaper every day for clues.
Unable to sleep one Saturday night in late May, Elisabeth poured out her heart to God. “I had no idea what my commitment to you would bring,” she said. “I’m determined to obey you in every instance, but except for Ben, my life has been nothing but trouble from the moment I turned it over to you. I know life abundant doesn’t mean happiness all the time and that you’re trying to teach me something. But can’t I know your will? Can’t I have some peace? Please tell me I did the right thing when I pledged myself to Ben. I feel obligated to honor that. I love him and want to be his wife.”
She rolled onto her stomach and propped herself up by her elbows to look out the window. Elisabeth had communicated with God frequently enough and for enough years to have an inkling where she stood. She lay her cheek on the pillow, believing God had forgiven her getting ahead of him. Yet she felt no confirmation about marriage. That didn’t mean she had been wrong. But she hated God’s silence on the most important issue in her life.
She felt suddenly compelled to pray about Will. Was this God’s answer to her request for confirmation about Ben? She thanked God for Will’s friendship, for his character, for his work ethic, for his servant spirit. It was as if God were saying, “You think you’ve had it rough? He committed his life the same night you did, and look what he’s been through. You lost your father. So did he. You lost your home; he shares his with family and strangers.”
Elisabeth was at a loss. She was not about to pray, “Should I marry Will?” She didn’t have those kinds of feelings for him. She would go mad if God weren’t clearer. “Should I marry Ben?” she blurted.
She didn’t sense a clear yes or no. She simply felt she had gotten ahead of God by promising herself to Ben. But she had known that and already asked forgiveness for it. Now she just wanted God’s blessing on her commitment. Apparently, it didn’t work that way.
She had been wrong for having promised before praying about it, but was marrying Ben wrong? She could not conceive of that. If she was to marry Will rather than Ben, God would have to give her a love for him that transcended what she felt for Ben. Was that possible?
This would be easier if Ben was a cad or Will ignorant. Choosing between good and bad was easy. How did one choose between better and best? And how had it come to this? Since when was she deciding between Ben and Will? She had already made that decision.
Enough military men were getting Dear John letters because their women grew tired of waiting. That was not her problem. She had not even known of Will’s interest in her until she had fallen in love with Ben. Yet months before Ben asked her to marry him, she had known of Will’s intentions and even his conviction that it was of God.
Elisabeth put her feet on the floor and sat with her head in her hands. Was this the adventure of faith she had signed on for? Was this what it meant to make her life an experiment in obedience? What if God made it clear she had made the wrong choice and that she was to withdraw her acceptance of Ben’s proposal? There was not a doubt in her mind that Will was eager to step back into the picture. Neither God nor Ben had given her the freedom to tell Will that she had accepted a marriage proposal. There had to be some reason for that.
If God led her away from Ben, how would she ever tell him? Would he understand if she said it was God’s idea? And what would she do with her love for him, her passion, her longing to be his wife?
Elisabeth tried to sleep, hoping and praying that she was simply as young and confused as she felt and that somehow God would make it clear that she should marry Ben. Wherever he was.
CHAPTER NINE
Elisabeth woke Sunday with the dread fear that something had happened to Ben. She could not talk to nor even look at Will. Was this why God had given her no peace about Ben? Not because he was an unsuitable partner, but rather because he was not going to come back? She could think of nothing else.
The children were excited about Sunday school. Their parents slept in, which put pressure on Mrs. Bishop, Will, and Elisabeth to corral the children, feed them, and get them ready. Halfway through breakfast, Mrs. Bishop had had enough. “I don’t feel like going now myself,” she said. “I’d just as soon go back to bed.”
“Aw, Ma,” Will said. “You know you want to. Go get ready. I’ll handle the kitchen.” She stared as if she didn’t really want the obstacles removed. “Go on, now,” he said. “Wear that dress I got you.”
Will cleared the table and poured a pan of hot water in the sink. “Let me do that,” Elisabeth said, but he suggested if she could just keep track of the kids for ten minutes, he’d be right out.
“And you kids,” he said, making them all stop and look at him with expectant smiles. “Whoever’s the quietest and sitting the straightest when I get out there gets a phosphate tomorrow after school.”
They squealed and lit out for the truck. Elisabeth followed, but she too was stopped by a word from Will. “You all right?”
Standing at the sink in a shirt and tie, a dishtowel tucked in his belt, he looked at her with such concern that she nearly wept. “I’m worried about Ben,” she said, as if it were an admission.
“Any news?”
“No.”
“Then assume the best. Anything I can do?”
She couldn’t speak. She didn’t want to turn away, but neither did she want to burst into tears in front of him. As if to spare her the embarrassment, he turned back to the dishes. Elisabeth needed to follow the children, but she felt riveted. Staring at Will, busy at the sink, it was as if she had seen this before. Or would see it again. She could not pull away.
Then it hit her. With an alarming chill she pictured herself growing old with him, working with him in the kitchen. In the yard. In the car. The view was stark and clear. This wasn’t a vision; it was more an impression, some foreknowledge, an absolute assurance. She knew that if she merely said the word, told him she was available and would marry him, the deed would be done. They would have a family of their own.
When he turned toward her, she shook herself from her reverie and forced herself down the stairs. What had that been all about? Did she love Will? Could she? Should she learn to? It made no sense. Will Bishop?
The kids ran around the yard, but Elisabeth knew they would snap to as soon as Will came. She had to get her mind on something else before he came down. She sat in the cab of the truck, her Bible and Su
nday school lesson on her lap. She tried to concentrate, to remember the points she wanted to make to her young girls that morning. It was no use. Here came the kids. They had seen or heard Will bounding down the stairs, and they leapt into the back of the truck, stiff and straight and still.
Will made a huge show of examining each of them like a drill sergeant, and they all fought with all their might to keep from grinning. Mrs. Bishop came down looking surprisingly sporty in the dress Will had bought.
“Everybody wins!” Will said, and the kids cheered. His mother slid into the cab, putting Elisabeth in the center next to Will. He excused himself each time he had to move the gearshift lever on the floor between them. Elisabeth had never felt more self-conscious. On the way home she would sit by the window, with his mother between them, if she had to climb over the top of the truck to do it.
Will walked his mother to her class before heading to his own, and the kids raced to their respective spots. Elisabeth taught fourth-grade girls in a tiny room off the fellowship hall in the basement. One of Will’s nieces, Sue, with short brown hair and huge, dark eyes, was new enough to church and Sunday school that she alone would have made it worth Elisabeth’s while. Sue stared at her, listening to every word, eager to find verses in the Bible Pastor Hill had given her.
During class, Elisabeth briefly forgot Ben and Will and her turmoil. In church she found herself directly in front of Will. She knew it was her imagination, because a man like Will had loftier things on his mind, but she felt as if his eyes were boring a hole in the back of her head. She couldn’t concentrate. When the congregation stood for the closing hymn, she used the occasion to look sideways. From the corner of her eye she couldn’t tell what he was looking at. Next week she would sit behind him. Or beside him. Anywhere but in front of him.
The hymn was “In the Cross of Christ,” which Elisabeth loved because it reminded her of the mother she never knew. Pastor Hill suggested they sing all four verses a cappella, and Elisabeth was struck to hear Will’s clear voice behind her. In all their years growing up in that church, she could not recall having heard him sing.
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