The meal was a merry one, for Billy and Stan were irrepressibly gay and the others were relaxed and carefree in their freedom from their daily responsibilities. The talk about the board gave Hope an opportunity to become better acquainted with the Kings and Dr. Ben than had been possible in all the weeks of working together.
Hope learned that the Kings had spent a week the preceding summer at a lake cottage, with Billy and Stan as their guests. She heard of Eleanor’s family who lived on a farm near the north woods, of Stan’s father and sisters, of Phil’s brother and sister in California. Dr. Ben and Hope were the only ones who did not talk of dear ones from whom they were separated. Eleanor had said once that Ben’s parents were dead. Hope wondered if he felt as out of place and lonesome in this group as she did. It did not seem so, for he was talking and laughing with the others. Probably it was easier to lose one’s parents and be left entirely alone than to be a step-stepchild who wasn’t wanted.
When the pie was served Stan took one taste and rolled his eyes ecstatically.
“Who baked this pie?” he asked solemnly.
“Hope did,” said Chad promptly. “I helped her fix the pumpkin yesterday.”
“Oh—h, what a relief! I was afraid it was Mrs. King, and I don’t want to break up a happy home. I just have to marry the woman who made that pie!”
Hope’s face flamed, while Billy retorted, “Steady, pal. Don’t forget that you’re promised to me.”
“Oops! I forgot. Well, Miss Hope, will you be my second wife?”
Billy saved her from having to answer this nonsense by serving Stan a second piece of pie.
After dinner was over, the men and Chad went off to show Stan about the Institute while the women did the dishes. Then Hope slipped away to her room. She was depressed and lonely, and did not care to be a part of the circle that would gather around the piano later and sing, as Eleanor had planned. Her Thanksgiving Day had been spoiled, and she longed for the morrow when the interloper would be gone and the boys and girls would be back for their work and play. She spent the afternoon reading and writing.
Daddy and Mother Bess wrote every week—long letters about all that went on in the small town. Hope never admitted to herself that she enjoyed them but dutifully answered, telling only the most ordinary happenings of her life and omitting all the thoughts and reactions that would tell of the heart of the real Hope. So the home letters kept coming, and each week Mother Bess sent a bundle of newspapers that Hope read avidly. She always turned first to the wedding column, and always she felt a bit of relief when she failed to find the account of Jerry and Grace’s marriage. Today, as she looked through the bundle, she found Grace’s name in the list of guests at a house party, but Jerry’s name was not there. She wondered if they had quarreled. She would not ask, not wanting anyone to think she was interested in Jerry, who could be planning a marriage with one girl and making love to another at the same time.
I’m not interested in that Jerry. I’m interested in the Jerry who used to help me with my geometry and go skating with me and do without Cokes and hot dogs so he could put more money in the fund for our dream house. That was another Jerry, a different one. Not the one who sneaked away with Grace. I guess that other Jerry was just in my mind. He never really existed. I just thought Jerry Parnell was that kind of fellow. But he wasn’t, really, any more than Daddy is my real father. I don’t think I can even dream about him anymore. Even my dreams are spoiled!
Hope curled up on her bed with a blanket over her, and cried herself to sleep. When she awoke, it was dark, and she was cramped and hungry. She did not want to join the family group for supper, so went quietly down the back hall into the deserted kitchen and got a piece of pie and some milk. Then back to bed again. Life was almost intolerable at times!
“What is the matter with Hope?” Eleanor asked Billy as they prepared sandwiches for a light supper.
“Search me! She has been a terrible grouch all day.”
“Perhaps she is ill.”
“I don’t think so. She went dopey all at once, about the time Stan came last night. I asked him if he knew her, for she certainly acted as if she loathed him. He said he never saw her before.”
“I’m sorry,” said Eleanor with a sigh. “She has changed so much for the better since she started teaching that I hoped her moodiness was gone. Today she has looked and acted like the girl who came here in August.”
“Wonder what she will think when she finds out that Stan is going to stay.”
“What do you think of his staying, Billy?”
“Dee-lighted! Life always takes on a little extra zip for me when Stan is about. He’s better than a whole bottle of vitamins. And won’t the boys be crazy over him! He’s clever as can be with tools and full of the most fascinating ideas. I know, for I’ve nearly lost my life several times trying to keep up with him. He’s good at all sports. I predict that within a week our boys’ department will take a tremendous boom. There’s only one thing …”
She stopped and waited as if she were loath to go on. Eleanor said nothing, and at length Billy continued.
“Len, I’m sure Stan told Phil he’s a Christian or Phil wouldn’t have dreamed of hiring him. I think that he thinks he really is. But—I don’t know …”
“What makes you doubt him?”
“Well—I don’t want to misjudge him. I wish I could believe Stan is a Christian. It’s the only thing we don’t agree on. Not that we have any disagreements about it. We don’t seem to have any—any fellowship, I guess I mean. It’s hard to put it into words. I know him almost as well as I know myself—and like him lots better! He’s a church member and one of the grandest chaps I know. But I don’t believe he’s born again. I don’t think he knows what it’s all about.”
“Well, God seems to have sent him our way just when we desperately needed him. We can’t dispute him when he says he’s a Christian, for we don’t know. We will have to wait and pray.”
The weather had turned bitterly cold as night drew on, and the old furnace proved inadequate. Phil and Ben made a trip to the basement and came up with armloads of wood that Sam Pawley had cut from the broken limbs on the lawn. They kindled a fire in the living room fireplace and gathered about its heat gratefully. Chad climbed onto Phil’s lap and curled into the crook of his arm.
“It still fits,” he announced happily. “Patsy says that some day I’ll climb up here and find I’m too big. I don’t want to ever be as big as that. Do I have to, Daddy?”
“Yes, son, some day you’ll be too big. When that day comes, you’ll be glad. So long as you feel the need of Dad’s shoulder you’ll never be too big.”
“Oh, I’m glad. ‘Cause I need it awful lots. It’s a very comferble shoulder. Don’t you think so, Mummy?”
“Indeed I do,” said Eleanor, the warm color dyeing her cheek as Billy and Stan smiled at her. “It’s a comfortable shoulder—a dear, solid, strong one that I love to lean on.”
“Come on, then,” said Phil. “I have another knee and another arm.”
“Not now,” laughed Eleanor. “I’ll try this instead.”
She drew a big hassock up to Phil’s side and, seating herself on it, leaned against him, while his arm encircled her shoulders.
“This is the life!” he said inelegantly. “I’m truly sorry for you unfortunate gentlemen who have to divide one small girl between you. And she doesn’t belong to either of you like this little lady belongs to me!”
“Don’t rub it in,” said Ben. “You two make single blessedness seem most unblessed.”
They sat in silence for a while, watching the flames. Then Billy started to sing, and the rest joined in. In her room Hope heard them and resented their joy, yet longed unutterably to be with them in that happiness.
14
Neither Billy nor Eleanor found out how Hope reacted when she learned that Stan had been added to the staff. It was Chad who told her about it. As she went out to do her marketing on the morning after Thanksgiving Day,
he was playing with his football in the driveway.
“This is the best football,” he boasted. “It’s the biggest one and the best one in the world!”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Yes, it is. Stan gave it to me to keep. I’m glad Stan is going to live here.”
“Live here?” echoed Hope blankly.
“Yep! He’s going to teach the boys to play basketball and make airplanes and—and—lots of things.”
“Really, Chad? Is that true?”
“’Course it is. I don’t tell things not true. I truly don’t. Why? Don’t you think it’s nice, Miss Hope?”
“Yes—I guess so.” Then, to change the unpleasant subject, she said, “How far can you kick the ball, Chad?”
“Oh, pretty far. A mile, I think. I’ll show you.”
Chad’s kick, while considerably short of the boasted mile, was, nevertheless, a good one for his short legs, and Hope applauded it.
“Now you kick, Miss Hope.”
“Oh no, I’d better not.”
“Why not? Can’t you kick a ball?”
“Yes, I can. I used to kick a football often. But I haven’t done it lately.”
“Please—please, come on and show me.”
Hope really wanted to kick that ball—“the biggest and best one in the world”—so with a shamefaced laugh she said, “Come out into the garden and I will.”
In the garden she looked carefully around, then, seeing no one watching, she proved her ability with a drop kick which sailed the full length of the garden in a high, graceful arc. Both Chad and Hope were watching the ball and failed to observe an audience until Stan’s voice cried, “Boy, oh boy! That was a kick! What are you, anyway? A member of the All-American in disguise?”
He stood barely inside the hedge and had evidently rounded the corner of the old stable just in time to witness and appreciate the kick. He was laughing in friendly fashion, but Hope did not answer. With flaming face she turned away and marched out the back gate, through the alley, and on to market. To herself she vowed that if that person were to be about the place all the time she would keep as close to her own domain as possible. And she did hope Chad would not tell anyone about the football.
For several days Hope kept her resolution and went about her work in reserved silence. Billy puzzled over her but found no answer to the riddle. Eleanor longed to win her confidence, that she might help to drive away the cloud of depression. Stan patiently and persistently tried to be friendly with her. Just as persistently, she snubbed him. But snubbing Stan was a difficult thing, for he was always back in a short time with a smile and a joke. All the rebuffs she gave him made no more impression on him than water on a duck’s back. As she carried home a load of groceries from market he would appear at her elbow.
“Wait a minute, lady! Let me carry some of that load.”
“Thank you. I’m doing very nicely.”
“OK, Groucho! Just keep on doing nicely—all by yourself,” and he would walk away in an apparent huff.
Yet an hour later he would appear in the room where Hope was working over an old sewing machine and say nonchalantly, “Let me look at the balky critter. It can’t be any ornerier than my old jeep, and I tamed that.”
He put both of the decrepit sewing machines into workable condition and appeared not to notice that Hope’s “thank you” was not very hearty.
Stan thought there could be some very profitable cooperation between the home economics department, taught by Hope, and the handicraft division, of which he was the instructor. One day as Hope came from an errand downtown, he alighted from the same street car and hailed the coincidence as a fortunate opportunity to speak of his ideas. But repeated efforts to open a conversation failed, and finally in exasperation he said, “Say, lady, I’m trying to make a pickup here and would appreciate a little cooperation. Are you immune to even the charmingest of charms?”
“Yes, I am. I’ve been vaccinated.”
Stan laughed, in spite of his vexation. “Hopeless, I like you. I really do. You’re so interesting.”
“Well, I’m not interested. What can you do about that?”
“I shall do nothing. Such indifference has killed my interest in you. I shall just turn to you a well-bred cold shoulder and leave you to eat your heart out in remorse. Better watch out, though. Someday you are going to turn into a pickle. Just bound to with so much vinegar and spice in your system.”
They had reached the gate, and as they separated he turned to her with a grin. “You could be a sweet pickle, if you’d try,” he said.
That evening he sought Billy as she sat alone in the study. Hope had a cooking class, and there was no danger of interruption.
“Bill, have you any idea why Hope has such a hate on me?”
“Not the foggiest. I’ve begun to think she’s a case for a psychiatrist. She used to be kind and friendly—never jolly, except with Chad—and when she was at work she seemed almost happy. But lately she’s been positively morbid. I can’t figure her out.”
“I think she dislikes herself, even. I never knew anyone could be such a grouch. She tantalizes me. I keep trying to find the good sport that I have a hunch is hidden behind that sourpuss. Anyone who can give such a comeback as she hands out occasionally could be invigorating company if they wanted to be. But I decided today that she likes to act ornery.”
“No, you’re wrong there, Stan. She’s thoroughly miserable. She’s brooding over something. The other night when she thought I was asleep she was crying heartbrokenly. I wanted to comfort her, but she’s such a clam I didn’t dare. Both Eleanor and I have tried to win her confidence, but it seems hopeless. If Eleanor can’t do it, no one can.”
“The poor kid! Think of her crying in the night with no one to go to. Hasn’t she a mother?”
Stan’s voice was husky, and Billy thought of the mother whom he had loved dearly and who had recently been taken from him. Her own voice was tender as she answered.
“Yes, she has. She told Chad she has parents and a younger brother and sister. She gets mail several times a week. However, she never speaks of them. I think she has quarreled with them.”
“That’s not hard to believe. She probably has quarrels with herself in the mirror. But I’d sure like to know why I stir up her venom so tremendously.”
When Hope came in later, after Stan had gone, Billy ventured a frank question.
“Hope, I don’t want to pry if you don’t want to talk about it. Yet I do wish you’d tell me why you dislike Stan so much. It bothers all of us.”
Hope looked confused and hesitated before replying. In fact, she found it difficult to answer at all. For just this evening as she worked with her girls she had been thinking of the same matter. One of the girls had been telling the others a story which, as Hope heard it, had brought a doubt into her mind as to her attitude. The story had to do with the girl’s small, crippled brother and Stan’s kindness to him. Somehow, that story of an action that Stan had not expected anyone to discover touched her heart and made her realize that perhaps she was misjudging him. Jerry Parnell would never have bothered with a crippled child. Perhaps the likeness was only external. Stan’s flippancy might cover a heart that was tender, even though he did look like Jerry. Now, to have Billy speak this way confirmed the feeling of shame that had come as she reviewed her actions of the past days. She did not know how to answer Billy, so parried.
“What makes you think that I dislike him? He really means nothing to me.”
“I don’t think you’re being quite truthful. If he means nothing to you, why bother to be so rude? You know you have been rude to him, and somehow it has changed the whole atmosphere around the Institute. We’ve always had fellowship among the workers until now, and we just can’t understand what this is all about.”
“Why did he have to come?” burst out Hope. “We were so nice and friendly before, and he’s spoiled it all.”
“I don’t think he’s spoiled anything,” retorted Billy
heatedly. “I think you have. You were helpful and kind before he came, and now, just because of jealousy or some imagined grievance—”
“Oh, you’re wrong!” cried Hope. “I’m not jealous. He just looks so much like someone I know who isn’t the right kind of person, and he acts so crazy, and he’s always laughing at me, and—oh, I don’t know. I just can’t stand him!”
Having gone thus far, Billy was not one to turn back. Drawing a long breath and lowering her voice so that Eleanor might not hear, she said, “Hope, you’re off on the wrong foot! I don’t care who Stan looks like. I’ve known him all my life, and I know he’s fine and good and absolutely sincere, even if he does act crazy at times. You can’t judge by looks. I knew twins once who looked exactly alike. One of them acted like an angel and the other like an imp. You’re silly to judge Stan so. You’re making us all feel bad. You’re throwing a monkey wrench in the machinery of the whole Institute. Can’t you at least give him a chance?”
“Why do you care so much?” asked Hope, uncomfortably.
Billy looked confused, then answered almost defiantly, “Because he’s such a dear, and I care a great deal about him. I wanted so much for us to show him what real Christianity is like, and I had hoped—”
What she had wished, Hope did not learn, for at this point Chad came running in to say that Billy was wanted at the telephone. When she returned to the study fifteen minutes later, Hope was gone. A light in the big kitchen gave a clue as to her whereabouts, but Billy had cooled off a bit and decided to say no more on the subject.
Hope did not return to the study until Billy had gone to bed. Then, instead of gong to her own bed, she closed the door between the study and the tower room and lay down on the davenport where her restlessness would not disturb Billy. She knew she could not go to sleep. She was sure no one had ever been so miserable as she was. She was no stranger to unhappiness. Her life had held much of it. However, this time it was worse than ever before, for there was no one she could blame but herself. Billy was right. She had been rude and unkind to Stan, and for no reason. He could not help it if he looked so much like Jerry that his coming had torn aside all the defenses she had built up in her stay at the Institute and left her a prey again to the old pain and heartache. It was not his fault, yet she had resented him for it.
Not My Will and The Light in My Window Page 35
