Several hours later Mrs. Stewart wakened and noticed a thin shaft of light under Chad’s door. Thinking he had fallen asleep and forgotten to extinguish the light, she crossed the hall to his room and tapped gently on the door, not expecting a reply. To her surprise she heard a muffled “Come in.” She entered to find Chad just rising from his knees, the Bible open on the bed, and his eyes brimming with tears. In a husky voice he said, “I’ll go to bed now, Mom. It’s all right. The Lord and I are friends again.”
Thoughts of Eleanor had never been far from Chad’s mind since he left her, and he did not need the picture in his watch case to bring her face into constant remembrance. But now he missed her more than ever. He longed to share with her this wonderful new experience of day-by-day living with Christ and to bring her to this same “good place” of the Spirit. As he thought about her and prayed for her day after day, he began to doubt that Eleanor had ever really known the Lord as Savior. He knew she had been raised in a formally religious atmosphere and had been taken into the church with a class of boys and girls when she was twelve years old. But as he looked back and tried to recall all they had said to each other on the subject, he became convinced that she had never been born again. He understood clearly, as he never had before, just how they had let themselves get into the situation which was now proving so complicated and difficult. Had Eleanor been a Christian, or had he been living close to the Lord, as he should have been doing, their problem would have been put into the Lord’s hands, and they would have waited to marry in His good time. Chad did not blame Eleanor. She did not know the Lord. He did. He should have followed his Master first and gone to Him in his perplexities, rather than to have been overpersuaded by Eleanor. Much as he loved her, and even with the memory of the sweet fellowship of the spring months they had had together, he wished with all his heart that he could go back to Christmas and begin again, to woo and win Eleanor in a different way.
The step had been taken, however, and the problem now was their future. He loved her more than ever, and he prayed with new humility and faith for her salvation. He pondered much on the secrecy of their marriage and longed to confess it all to his mother and ask her help. But it was Eleanor’s secret as well as his own, and he felt he must wait for her to join him in the confession. He knew she would not do this until she saw the whole matter in a new light. And that light would only come when she knew the Light of the World. So he prayed and worked and waited for their reunion.
One night as he drove home from the hospital, his soul seemed burdened beyond endurance. He realized anew that more important than anything else in the world is a person’s relationship to God; that a right relationship can be established only as he accepts Jesus Christ as his Savior from sin. Eleanor just must accept his Savior! He would be willing to give his own life if that were necessary to bring it about. He stopped the car by the cemetery gate, and, going softly through the shadows to the seat by the elm, he knelt for a long time, pouring out his soul at the throne of intercession, pleading that the Holy Spirit might convict the girl he loved of her need and of Christ’s sufficiency to meet that need. “Oh, Father, whatever it may cost me, bless Eleanor and bring her to Thee,” he prayed.
Eleanor’s summer was also full and busy. Professor Nichols, feeling that his working days were nearing an end, tried to crowd every day as full of work as possible. Early in the morning and late at night, Eleanor’s eyes and hands and mind were needed. This was no pleasure trip. The textbook that was to be the crowning labor of the professor’s career needed just these weeks of work to complete it. Haste was imperative, for it might not be possible to make this trip again. Early and late they labored, putting into the precious textbook their combined labors.
Professor Nichols took no recreation and was so engrossed in his work and oblivious to all things else that he did not notice Eleanor’s weariness. She never complained, however. She had found that if she worked as hard as possible all day, there was less time to be lonely.
“But I am lonely,” she admitted to herself. “I love my work, and I want to help, but it doesn’t satisfy me anymore. I wonder what the professor would think if he knew that my thoughts aren’t here in the laboratory half the time but out in the fields with Chad. If only I could have gone with him!”
Letter writing helped, but not much. Every letter Eleanor received made her long more intensely for her husband, especially as she read of his yearning for her. Several times she wrote long letters in return, pouring out all her love on the paper. But the intensity of the letters frightened her when she read them over, and in the end she always burned them, sending Chad instead short, bright notes telling of her work and her admiration for the professor. She knew that these would not satisfy Chad, but she could not write more intimately without breaking down the wall she had constructed to shut in her longing to be with him.
“Why, if Chad ever got this,” Eleanor told herself as she finished re-reading one of the long love letters she never mailed, “he’d come on the next train and bundle me up and take me back with him without listening to a word I could say. No siree!” She shook her bright head and began writing a much different sort of letter. “I’ll make it all clear to him when I see him again.”
One morning in mid-September, Professor Nichols entered the laboratory to find Eleanor already at work.
“Well, Miss Eleanor,” he announced jovially, “I have good news for you.”
“What is it? Is the book finished?”
“It can be finished now quite satisfactorily without the aid of the equipment here. We are going to return home just as soon as you can prepare yourself for the journey. How soon can we make our reservations ?”
He was unprepared for the glad smile that broke over her face. “Oh, tomorrow—today!” she exclaimed. “I can be ready as soon as you like. Do let’s go soon!”
“Well, we shall take our departure as soon as arrangements can be concluded. I suppose you are eager to take up this next year’s work at the university.” He beamed at her fondly.
Chad, Chad, her heart sang.
* * *
As the miles flew behind them, the thoughts of both the professor and Eleanor raced ahead. Professor Nichols, anticipating the finishing of his book, was thanking the Lord for sending him such an efficient assistant as Eleanor, whose aid had been so indispensable to him. He planned the dedication of the volume.
To my dear wife,
whose faith in me inspired this volume,
and to my faithful assistant, E. A. S.,
whose labors made it possible.
Eleanor was not thinking of the book. She was wondering when Chad would return from the farm. His last letter had not disclosed his plans. She sent him a wire and thought she could not bear the disappointment if he should still be gone when she arrived. The professor and his wife left the train at a suburb just outside the city, but she scarcely heard their farewells. She was as excited as any schoolgirl at the prospect of seeing Chad again.
The station was full of people milling about, but no Chad. Eleanor made her way to the street door. Suddenly she felt her purse being slipped out from under her arm. She turned to retrieve it, only to meet Chad’s laughing, loving gaze.
“This your purse, madam?” He held it up teasingly.
“Oh, Chad,” she gasped.
Quickly he engineered her to the sidewalk and beckoned for a cab. They climbed in; Chad gave the driver an address, and as they drove off, Chad’s arms went around her in a close, tender caress.
“Darling,” he said. “I know this is extravagant, but you wouldn’t have wanted me to do this on the El, would you? Oh, Ellen, it’s been a long, long summer, and I promise you a hundred times over it will never happen again. Did you miss me? Your letters didn’t sound like it.” He looked at her half teasingly, half pleadingly.
“I missed you so much I didn’t dare put one bit of it on paper,” she replied huskily. “I wrote you long letters—but they frightened me, and I burned them.”
“Oh, that wasn’t right,” he exclaimed. “After we got into it there wasn’t any way out, though. The folks really did need me, and the old professor needed you. We promised not to tell, and we didn’t. But look here, young lady,” and he placed a finger under her chin and tilted her eyes to look straight into his own, “here’s one decision of mine that is absolutely final. I’m not going home again without you.”
“I hope you won’t have to, dear. It was all harder than I dreamed it could be,” she said, smoothing softly the hand that had grown hard with the summer’s toil. “But it is all behind us now, and we have the rest of our lives to be together. You’ve done the right thing, and I’ve done the helpful thing, so let’s not grieve over it anymore but look ahead to this year together at school. And—oh, Chad!” Her face brightened with the sudden thought. “We still have time to go out to the lake together for a few days before registration.”
His only answer was a kiss. Then for a time they rode together in silence, enjoying the familiar sights and sounds of the big city.
Suddenly Ellen sat up. “Chad, this driver must be lost. We’re not going the right way!”
“Yes, we are,” he returned mysteriously. “I want to show you something. Afterward we can go over to the campus if you like.”
A look of wonderment came on Ellen’s face, and it increased when the taxi drew up before an apartment building and stopped. Chad helped her out, and the driver carried her bag up to the entrance.
“Chad, what in the world—” she began, but he raised a quieting finger.
“Now, just wait a minute,” he replied.
He unlocked the door and drew Eleanor inside. “Follow me,” he said mysteriously and started up the steps. On the second floor he opened another door, took Eleanor’s hand, and pulled her inside.
“Welcome home, Mrs. Stewart,” he said with a flourish.
“Chad! What is this?” she exclaimed, looking around in astonishment.
“Just what I said. Home. I’m the head of this house, and I’m setting my foot down. I’ve rented this apartment. No weekend wife for me any longer.”
Before he had even finished his speech Eleanor’s comprehension returned and she had flung herself into his arms. “Oh, darling, this is wonderful,” she exclaimed.
Chad looked frowning into the hall mirror. “Mrs. Stewart, if you unsettle my necktie like that again I’ll take you back to the university and exchange you for a set of books.”
She laughed unsteadily and promised to be more dignified. Chad sat down on the studio couch between the casement windows and drew her down beside him.
“Rest here awhile, and then we’ll inspect our nice, shiny new home together.”
“Chad, we can’t do this!”
“We can, and we will.”
“But how? We can’t afford it in the first place. And no one knows we are married.”
“One person does now—the manager of this building. But no one at school will find out. After all, we are nearly four miles from the university, and when we leave there at the end of the day, our lives are our own. As for the cost,” Chad went on, a little frown puckering his brow, “well, I don’t feel so good about that, for you’ll have to pay your share just as if you were living at your old address. I wish it weren’t that way, but until we’re through school, I don’t see any other way. And as there was still a small discrepancy in the rent between what I could pay and what the rent costs,” Chad finished smilingly, “I asked the maintenance man whether he could use a strong extra hand on Saturdays and Mondays, and it seems he can, so I’ll work out the rest of the rent firsthand.”
“But what if …” Eleanor’s voice trailed off doubtfully.
“Don’t tell me; let me say it. What if someone comes to see us and finds out our horrible secret? Who’s been coming to see you the past two years, my girl, with you working so hard? Nobody. And the same goes for me too. In the two years that I have roomed over Professor Merritt’s garage, no other person has set foot in my room. From now on, I’m going to take up even more of your time, so you’ll be an absolute social dud. So you just push all your little doubts into the back of your mind and forget them, and lean that pretty head closer on my shoulder and rest a little bit.”
Eleanor sighed contentedly. “Just to be able to feel you again, and to know you’re real and not a dream, makes me forget I ever was tired. And this lovely apartment …”
“’Fess up, now—aren’t you glad I did it?”
“Well, of course, except that every time I think of the complications it may involve I get panicky.”
“We’ll take care of the complications as fast as they come to call on us. Just now let’s talk about our rosy future. Do you know, every time I kissed Mary Lou this summer, I longed for the day when you and I will have our own houseful of youngsters. Would you mind half a dozen?”
“Dear me, such a few!” Eleanor exclaimed in mock dismay. “I had thought we wanted a whole dozen, all taught to behave.”
Chad continued musingly. “They will inherit the tendency to be beautiful from you and to be good from my mother.” Then suddenly he added, “This is a very abrupt change of subject, but what do you say we look at our house?”
The apartment was tiny but attractive, and every corner was examined thoroughly. There was a large living room, simply and tastefully furnished, with windows that looked out into the branches of a huge oak. One side of the room opened into a dressing room and bath, and from the other side one entered a dinette and kitchen.
“Why, it’s just like the doll’s house I used to have!” exclaimed Ellen joyously, as she stepped into the cheery red-and-white kitchenette.
“Well, what do you know!” Chad exclaimed, opening the refrigerator door. “The people who lived here before us must have left us a few morsels of food.”
Ellen came and peered over his shoulder and saw that he had been shopping and stocked everything necessary for their first dinner in their own home.
“Wise man.” She laughed. “I also observe that you bought everything ready-cooked. Undoubtedly a reflection on my culinary abilities.”
“Honest, I didn’t think of that! I just wanted to save time on this special evening. We ought to spend all our time looking at each other, don’t you think?”
“Why, of course—and you couldn’t hurt my feelings if you did cast aspersions on my cooking ability. But I will learn, if only to show you what an excellent housewife you married.”
“I married the only girl in the world for me, and that’s all that matters,” Chad said in a low voice.
The meal was soon ready, and they sat down, not across the table from each other in proper style, but side by side, hand in hand. When they were seated Chad put his arm around his wife, bowed his head, and said softly, “We thank Thee, Father, for all Thy goodness to us, and especially that Thou hast brought us together again. We thank Thee for this home, and we ask that Thy blessing may rest on it and us. May we live and work here to Thy glory. Bless this food to our use and us to Thy service. Amen.”
Eleanor was now happier than she had ever been in all her life. At eight every morning she and Chad arrived at school and went to their separate classes. At noon they ate lunch together in a corner of Professor Nichols’s laboratory, always empty except for them, and after lunch they studied for a half hour. In the afternoon Chad went to the chemistry laboratory and worked hard until five o’clock. Eleanor worked with her slides or labored in the darkroom for one or two hours, then hurried away to buy groceries and prepare dinner. She had attacked the cooking problem with precision and thoroughness and had become fascinated by the possibilities found in the cookbook. There were some dismal failures, of course, but Chad manfully ate all that she cooked. He teased her about “pop unders” and “cardboard pie crust” if they appeared, praised her for all her successes, and was inordinately proud of her progress.
Eleanor confined herself scrupulously to the budget that she and Chad had made based on their
earnings at school. Her monthly income from the lawyer lay untouched in the bank, and it became a point of honor with her never to touch a cent of it, as Chad did not know of its existence and would not understand.
“But I wonder what he would think,” she asked herself late one afternoon, while she busily peeled potatoes and onions for a savory stew, “if he knew that I could sit down and write a check that would pay for our rent and food for a whole year? He wouldn’t like it, probably—so I’ll just let the money pile up.”
So Eleanor practiced all the economies she knew and learned new ones to help stretch the little budget. She traded baby-tending for the use of a washing machine, and it was with elation that she hung her first washing on the line.
“If Aunt Ruth could only see me now.” She smiled. “She never dreamed her darling child would come to this—for the sake of a man. Dear Auntie! I wish she knew how happy I am!”
Happiness was the order of the day in the little apartment. Eleanor and Chad enjoyed sweet fellowship, studying together at the little breakfast table in the alcove, and Eleanor would one day linger long over this view in her Picture Gallery.
Yet she was unhappily aware that Chad was disturbed because their spiritual fellowship was not what he longed to have it be. The new experience he had written her about during the summer had made a difference. When he prayed before breakfast, it was not just “saying grace,” as she had always known it, but a real morning prayer. He thanked God for the rest and care of the night, and committed them both to Him for guidance and protection during the day. Eleanor did not dislike this; it simply did not interest her much, and often she found her thoughts straying to work or lessons that lay ahead.
Every evening before Chad started studying, he would read awhile from his Bible, which always lay within easy reach on the living room table. Often he would read aloud. Eleanor enjoyed this—but more because of her admiration for her husband’s voice than of any appreciation for the text itself. However, because she saw he loved the Book, she sincerely tried to become more interested in it.
Not My Will and The Light in My Window Page 6
