Before she had reached the end of the bridge, however, there was a crack and a lurch of the timbers, and the free end of the span sank slowly into the stream. Desperately Eleanor clutched Bobby with one hand and grabbed the rail with the other, praying that it would hold until she could reach the firm ground. It did hold, and for a moment she clung to it before trying to climb up the now steeply sloping floor. Bobby began to whimper, and she quieted him.
“Just a minute, Bobbykin. Auntie Len will help you up, and we will put you in the car. Now! Can you climb up and reach that post?”
Bobby tried but the floor boards were slick and wet, and his arms were short. Several times he made the trial, and each time when he slipped back it was with greater effort that Eleanor kept her hold on him.
“We can’t do that, Bobby. I can’t hold you. If I draw you over to me maybe you can hold on and help me. You’re a heavy boy.”
Bobby hugged the rail, but Eleanor dared not loosen her hold on him for his baby hands could not grasp the wide board firmly enough to sustain his weight. Her feet were slipping, and she feared she could not continue to hold her own and Bobby’s combined weights. Twisting about, she managed to brace one foot against an upright and thus to take some of the load off of her aching arms. She clung there thankfully, resolving not to try again to reach the bank, but just to cling there until Phil came.
By turning her head as far as possible, she managed to see Phil’s dark head as he labored toward Chad. He was so slow! She knew how tired he must be, but if he could know that she needed him so desperately he would hurry. Her back ached, and her arms felt as if they would be pulled from their sockets. A nail bit into her palm, and the rough bark of the railing cause intense pain. Below them the water swirled and eddied. She must not look at it or she would faint. She raised her eyes and looked across the pasture and hay field to the hills beyond. Nestled against one hillside she saw the white walls of the country church, and above it on the hilltop two tall pines raised their masts to the sky, seeming to remind her of One who would be to her strength and endurance.
“Oh, Father, give me strength to hold on until Phil comes. Help Phil and my Chad, and bring them safely through the water. Keep Bobby quiet, Father. If it’s Thy will may we all be saved for Thy glory alone. Oh, hold me—hold me!”
Bobby was crying again and wriggling in his discomfort, and she had to speak sternly to him to quiet him. She turned again to see Phil, but her head hurt and she was so dizzy that she could not see him. Surely he must be nearly here! Waves of nausea swept over her and almost unendurable pain. But still she clung, and through lips into which her teeth had bitten until blood came she prayed, “Hold me, Father, hold me!”
She could not see Phil swimming frantically toward her, hindered by the weight of Chad. He had waited to rest a moment before the final swim and had only now realized her plight. Nor could she see the car that Bob was piloting in a reckless dash across the field. All she was aware of was blackness and pain and the necessity for holding onto the rail and to Bobby’s hand.
Bob, Marilyn, and Hope tumbled from the car, and the first two rushed to the bridge. Hope, seeing that they had reached Eleanor, took one look at Phil and Chad, kicked off her loafers, and slid from the bank to the aid of the exhausted Phil. As they struggled up the slippery bank, Bob was laying Eleanor on the ground while Bobby clung frantically to Marilyn. But Eleanor never knew what happened. As Bob’s strong arms came under her, she had let go and the waves of blackness became complete oblivion.
31
The light of dawn was coming through the windows when Eleanor opened her eyes. She lay for a time enjoying the soft smoothness of the bed and pillow. It was good to be just resting here with the fresh early-morning smells coming in to her and with the awakening chorus of the birds outside. She half dozed, troubled by the recollection of a bad dream she had had—a dream of angry waters and terrible danger to herself and to those she loved. She turned to reassure herself by the sight of Phil asleep at her side—then drew in her breath sharply. Phil was not there! She tried to rise, but her back and arms and shoulders were so sore and weak that she fell back on the pillow unable to lift herself. She looked at her hands and saw the scarred palms and broken nails. It wasn’t a dream! It was true! There had been a flood, and she had been on the bridge with Bobby slipping and crying while Phil and Chad were in the water. She struggled frantically to a sitting position, then relaxed again in unspeakable relief. In a big Morris chair by her side Phil was asleep, and on a cot across the room the two little boys lay in sound slumber. Relief and thankfulness swept over her. She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes. Outside the birds chirped and trilled, and the breeze that came through the window brought the fragrance of summer flowers wet with dew. Once more she slept.
When she wakened again the sun was high, the cot was empty, and Phil, in the big chair, was reading a magazine. He looked tired, but when she moved he turned instantly and smiled.
“Hello there! I hoped you’d wake up sometime today.”
“I’ve been awake before—when you were asleep in the chair.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to sleep. I wanted to be awake when you awakened so that you would not worry.”
“I didn’t worry. I saw you here and the boys on the cot, so I went back to sleep.”
“Mother put them there. She said you would see them and be reassured if you awoke in the night.”
“They’re all right, aren’t they?”
“Sure! I sent them out of here two hours ago for fear they would disturb you. They’re a pair of huskies and none the worse for their wetting.”
He picked up his magazine again, and she took that as a cue for silence on her own part. She thought back to the scene on the bridge and remembered her prayer.
“Thank you, Father,” she murmured drowsily.
Eleanor slept and awoke and slept again. She was conscious of comings and goings in the hall outside, and occasionally someone would wander in and talk in low tones to Phil. She was too tired to pay any attention to them or even open her eyes to see who it was. At last she dropped again into deep sleep, and when she awoke this time the afternoon shadows were falling across the porch roof. Phil was dozing again but sat up quickly when she spoke.
“I fainted, didn’t I?”
“Yes, just as Bob reached you. You gave us all a scare. How do you feel now?”
“All right. Just glad to be resting here with you keeping watch. My hands are sore, and my head aches a bit, but the rest of my body hasn’t any feeling at all. I can’t seem to wake up or to realize what has happened. I’m just tired and dopey, but I’m all right. I’ll get up after a while,” she added drowsily.
“Oh, no you won’t,” said Phil with a smile. “You’ll lie right here for a few days. Doctor’s orders, little mother.”
She looked at him in bewilderment, still not fully awake. Then as he continued to smile at her, another thought came, startling her into full awareness.
“Phil, did my baby come?”
He laughed outright then and stooped to kiss her as he said, “I thought you’d arrive at that eventually. The answer is yes!”
“Oh—I can’t remember anything, and I’ve felt so numb. Is it Phil Junior?”
“Yes, if that is what you want to call him.”
“Of course it is. But I can’t remember. Can I see him? I won’t believe it until I do.”
“After a while. He’s in Mother’s room now, sound asleep.”
“Is he all right?”
“Fine. Not very big, and far from handsome. But he will improve on both scores, I hope.”
“I feel silly to have fainted. I never did before.”
He sat down on the side of the bed and taking up her hands kissed the scarred palms.
“Listen, Len. I’ll tell you this now so that you will quit being ashamed and can forget it all. You saved Bobby’s life and hung on like grim death when it must have been agony to you. You almost lost your own
life because of it. Some time when you are stronger, I’ll tell you all about the fight Mother and Dr. Leigh put up to save you. But just now I want you to humor me by lying quietly and resting.”
She did just that, adjusting her mind to the fact that motherhood had come to her again. Outside she could hear Chad calling to his dog and Sport’s answering bark as he bounded across the lawn. Then she heard Mother singing:
“Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow;
Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.”
“Phil?”
“Yes, honey.”
“Is Mother taking in her wash?”
He went to the window and looked out. “Why yes, she is.”
“I thought so. That’s her Monday song. Is this Monday, Phil?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Where did Sunday go? Wasn’t it Saturday when—when I fainted?”
“Yes, that was Saturday, but it is Monday now.”
“I can’t remember Sunday at all.”
“Don’t try. I’ll remember it all my life clearly enough for both of us.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m so very hungry.”
“You should be, not having eaten since Saturday noon. I gave Hope the high sign when she passed the door a few minutes ago, and she is fixing something for you now.”
A thin cry came from the room across the hall, and Eleanor looked pleadingly at Phil. “Is that my baby? May I please see him now?”
Phil went out, and after a low conversation with someone in the hall came back in bearing a large clothesbasket, which he placed on the cot.
“He’s going to be a tenor, I think. Do you want him, squalls and all?”
“Oh, yes!”
He placed the blanket-wrapped bundle beside her and watched in silence as she tenderly cradled it in the circle of her arm. She looked up and smiled through misty eyes.
“Now I believe it. He’s going to look like you, I hope. Oh, it’s so wonderful to have a tiny baby in my arms!”
“Like him, do you?” She laughed at the absurd question, but he continued, “Now that you have met your son, how would you like to meet my snub-nosed daughter?”
She looked bewildered as he turned again to the basket and gasped in consternation as he laid another squirming bundle at her side.
“Oh—oh—Phil! They aren’t both mine?”
“Oh, yes they are! You see, Chad had prayed for both a sister and a brother. So here they are. Could anything be better?”
“But what will I do with two babies?”
“If you don’t want them both, Bobby wants the ‘boy one’ he says. And Patty has spoken for the girl. But Chad says we will keep them both. We’ll manage somehow, won’t we, little mother?”
She looked at the two little red faces and drew them closer. “I didn’t think I could ever be so happy. We’ll keep them both.” She laughed unsteadily.
Then, after a moment’s silence, “He is Philip, but what shall she be?”
Phil answered promptly. “Margaret, after your mother. And the boy is Philip Leigh, if you don’t mind. I owe your life and my babies’ lives to those two grand old soldiers, and I’d like to give their names to the babies. You picked the Philip part of his name, suppose you give her another name, too.”
Hope, coming to the door with a tray for Eleanor, waited, not wanting to disturb them. Eleanor looked thoughtful, glanced questioningly at him, then said hesitantly, “I’d like—if you wouldn’t object—if it’s perfectly all right with you—to call her Margaret Lorraine—for the dearest friend I ever had.”
Phil did not answer at once. To Hope, in the doorway, there seemed to be no reason for his emotion. He tried several times to speak, then dropped on his knees by the bed and said, as he held Eleanor close, “I thought during the months that you and Chad and I have been so happy together that I had known the heights and depths of love. But today I am convinced it is something I shall never know. It is so immeasurably beyond my wildest imaginings.”
Hope placed the tray on the table by the door and stole away, sick at heart at the realization that such happiness as she had just been privileged to glimpse could never be hers.
32
It was Sunday afternoon. Phil had returned the day before to the city to carry on there for a short time before coming back for a real vacation. Eleanor and the babies were asleep in their bedroom, and Chad was taking a nap on the cot close by. Mother Stewart, Mary Lou, and Hope were on the big porch resting in the shade. Hope loved the quiet tranquillity of country Sundays. She enjoyed the services in the little frame church. She liked meeting the neighbors and returned their friendly advances with appreciation. She felt at home among them, for they were like the old friends near Grandpa Thompson’s farm. Especially did she enjoy these quiet afternoon hours when they read, talked, strolled through the woods, or just sat in silence. There was not so much of the hilarity and fun that prevailed on the weekday evenings which made her feel alien and strange. It was just a time of peace when all the things that wearied and fretted were laid aside.
Today Mary Lou was planning for the next week when Connie would be home.
“I can hardly wait,” she said excitedly. “I’m so glad Eleanor’s babies are here waiting for Connie. Won’t she be surprised? I had the hardest time not telling when I wrote the other day. But I didn’t, and won’t Connie’s and Dick’s faces be a sight when they see those two babies?”
Mother Stewart laughed. “When you get started like that, Mary Lou, one would think you were eight instead of fourteen.”
Mary Lou jumped up and made a bow. “Not if one looked at me, he wouldn’t. I measured by the pantry door this noon, and I’ve grown over an inch since my birthday.”
“You’re a genuine Stewart, dearie,” said Mother. “I wouldn’t believe you were mine if you weren’t built like a long-legged colt.”
“Yep. We’re all alike that way, aren’t we, Mummy?”
Mary Lou perched on the porch rail and looked down the highway as if hoping that Connie would appear at once. Hope gazed at Mary Lou in perplexity and then turned to Mrs. Stewart.
“But they aren’t all alike, are they?” she protested. “Eleanor is short. She just doesn’t seem to fit. She acts like you, but she looks so very different.”
The older woman stared as if not quite understanding, then amazed comprehension broke over her face.
“Hope, dear, don’t you know that Eleanor isn’t my daughter?”
Hope’s eyes opened in shocked disbelief. “Not—not your daughter? But what—what is she?”
“She is my daughter-in-law. My son Chad was her husband. He was killed in an accident before little Chad was born.”
Hope could hardly believe that she heard right. “Oh—then—why, Dr. King isn’t Chad’s father, is he?”
“No. Chad was four years old when Eleanor and Phil were married here in our church two years ago.”
“But Phil loves Chad so much! How could that be?”
“Yes, he does. He will never love his own son and daughter more than he does Chad.”
“But—oh, I just can’t adjust my mind to it. Eleanor and Phil love each other so dearly that it’s hard to think that she ever even thought—oh, I don’t know what to say! I can’t comprehend it. They belong to each other so completely that I can’t see how—”
She broke off and sat in troubled silence. Mrs. Stewart, looking at Hope, realized that, for some unknown reason, this situation had a vital significance to her. Something in her own life was involved in her reaction to this story of the relationships of the King family.
“Mary Lou, will you get the picture off my bedroom wall? Then bring that old book of snapshots from the shelf behind my door. I think we will have to begin at real beginnings and get things straight.”
With the picture in her hand she began, “This is a picture of Eleanor and Chad, taken just a few days before he left her.”
Hope looked at the framed picture. It was undeniably Eleanor, and th
e big Chad at her side showed what little Chad would look like in twenty years. They were hand in hand, laughing into the wind that tossed their hair.
“They look so happy and so much in love,” she said.
“They were happy and very much in love. So much so that it changed him from a thoughtless boy into a serious-minded man. When he was taken from her, her mind almost went.”
“And yet—she loves Phil now!”
“Yes, thank God, she does.”
They sat in silence while Hope pondered on this. Then she spoke. “Mrs. Stewart, do you think folks who have loved deeply once can ever do so again? I mean if something like death or—or—or something separates them?”
“I know that they can, dear. Eleanor loved Chad with all her being. They had planned a long life of service together. But when he was gone, God sent His loving and merciful healing into her life, and she now loves Phil and they are working together for the Lord. You have lived and worked with them for many months, Hope, and I am sure you cannot doubt that they are working out God’s will for their lives.”
Hope handed the picture back to Mrs. Stewart, who gazed at it fondly, seeing in memory the face and form of her firstborn. Then she laid it aside as Hope questioned, “Do you think it bothers Phil—about Eleanor and your son, I mean?”
Not My Will and The Light in My Window Page 46
