“Oh, how lovely!” cried Dale. “You have thought of everything! This is a real picnic lunch.”
“Yes?” he said comically. “But not as good as the lunch you would have prepared, I know.”
“Oh, but you don’t really know. You’ve never eaten any of my lunches.”
“You’re wrong,” said the soldier positively, with a twinkling grin. “Have you forgotten the cup of hot tea you made and the doughnuts you wrestled for me at the U.S.O.?”
“Oh,” said Dale, a lovely flush flaming over her sweet face. “No. I haven’t forgotten. I loved doing that.”
“And you didn’t know me at all then,” said the officer with satisfaction.
David went and stood over her and, stooping, kissed her forehead. “And you’re mine now. And we feel as if we’d known each other for years.”
“Oh yes!” said Dale softly.
Eventually they got down to earth and managed to eat all the sandwiches and a great deal of the fruit and to drink cups of lemonade.
And then shadows on the grass in front of the bench began to grow long, while they talked and laughed and loved each other with stars in their eyes. And finally they picked up their cups and their paper bags and the banana peels and left the lovely hidden bench behind the hemlocks. They went slowly down the hill hand in hand, knowing that they were going into the world again where there would be no cool green retreat and where they could not stop and kiss. But still as they loitered with their fingers linked together, David’s arm now and again around Dale’s waist, he would stoop in the shadow of some foliage and touch his lips to hers.
At the broad winding road they stopped a moment and turned back, looking up to the sheltered nook where they had been, as if it were somehow a hallowed place.
“It’s been a wonderful day,” said Dale wistfully, almost sorrowfully. “I wish it were just beginning!” And a bit of a sigh escaped from her lips.
“Yes,” said David. “It has. And it’s going to be a wonderful time to remember when I that is, when we are” he hesitated.
“Yes, I know,” said Dale bravely. “I know. Don’t put it into words. We’ll just put the memory of this day into the place where words come that we cannot bear to speak.”
They walked slowly on, keeping to the grassy side of the road where cars would not come too near.
But all too soon the walk was over and they had come to the highway and a taxi.
Seated in the taxi, Dale came to herself enough to ask a few questions. When did his train leave again? How much did he know of his destination, and could he tell her anything or must she just wait and trust? How soon, how often could he write? Oh, there were so many questions, and the afternoon was gone. She ought to have asked them before. There would come a long, lonely time when her heart would be all questions, and no way to ask them.
For answer he smiled. “It’s all right, dearest,” he said. “My train is supposed to leave the station at ten. Shall I take you home first, or can you find your way back alone safely after I leave? Ten o’clock is not late, and I thought I could put you in a taxi before my train comes in.”
“Oh no,” said Dale, “I’m used to going around alone, and ten o’clock is early. Besides, there is a bus that passes the station that comes right up to our street corner. I’m staying, please, until you leave, if you don’t mind.”
“That’s what I hoped you would do. I want to be able to watch you out the train window as we start off. And now, here” he handed her an envelope filled with papers—“inside that envelope you will find all the addresses and the answers to as many questions as I am permitted to answer. It isn’t very much, but I knew you would understand. And I’ll be writing you almost at once after leaving. I couldn’t do otherwise. There are so many other things we haven’t had time to say. After I got my bags packed yesterday, I spent most of the time getting these things together and trying to think of everything that might come up to trouble you after I am gone. I hope I haven’t forgotten anything. But if I have, we’ll be able to write, and you can trust God with it. It’s such a comfort that you know God and are not frivolous like so many girls I’ve met! I’m so glad you’re the kind of girl you are. How I love you for it.”
There were thrilling glances between them, even when they were where they could be overheard and could not talk privately. Dale was conscious of storing the glances away in improvised corners of her memory where she could take them out and exult in them afterward. Perhaps David, too, had visions of a time ahead when he would need such memories to help him through hard days.
He took her to a quiet restaurant where they could talk without interruption and where the food and service were of the best. He had not been idle during his days in the city and had carefully selected this place because he felt that it was to be a memorable night. He wanted everything to be the best for the sake of its memory. After all, it just might happen that it would be the only festive supper they could ever have, at least for a long, long time, and he wanted it to be happy all the way through.
They were not either of them in a mood to be very hungry and at first began to eat indifferently, but after all, they had spent the greater part of the day in the open air in the woods and that made for good appetites. So they soon began to enjoy the wonderful dinner.
“Oh David, this is going to cost a lot,” protested Dale, as he kept on with his ordering.
“I hope it does,” said David with a stubborn grin. “After all, it’s got to stand for all the times I’ll be wanting to take you out and can’t in the next weeks, or months, or whatever it is.”
“But you are ordering as if I were a princess.”
“Aren’t you my princess?”
“Oh,” said Dale, putting shy hands up to her crimson cheeks, “I never thought anyone would call me that!”
“But why not?” asked David, watching her with happy eyes. “You are very lovely, you know.”
The dinner was good, and the room was fairly quiet. They could sit there and talk. They searched out each other’s innermost thoughts and rejoiced in one another. And so at last the hours sped on until it was time to hurry to the station, time for David to retrieve his checked baggage and answer the call of the train.
There were other servicemen standing there with friends, mothers, and girls, and some fathers. Tears on averted faces, earnest last words. But Dale and David had no eyes for others. They were taking those last looks at each other.
And then the final call. David stooped and kissed her now, as if he had the right before all the world to own her as his, and she dared to put her arms around his neck for one brief instant.
“It is night now,” he whispered as he held her close, “but it will be day, by and by. And ‘All through the night, my Savior will be watching over you,’ my darling!”
One more kiss and he was gone, flying down the platform with other last ones, swinging on the train and waving his farewell. And then the train chugged out of the station and into the darkness of the night. He was gone!
Dale turned and went back into the empty station, her heart suddenly crying out for him. Then she heard his whispered song words: “All through the night, my Savior will be watching over you,” and she continued on, her heart comforted with the thought.
Chapter 9
All the way home, Dale was reveling in the things that had come to her and thrilling with joy over them. Life could never again be the same to her. Someone loved her! Someone wanted her, needed her. Come life or death that would always be something to rejoice over. And she did not once think what else was before her except the great empty space until her love’s return, nor once remember the problems she had left behind her in her own home, problems that had loomed so large last night. Not until she got out of the bus and saw her house standing in its usual place up the hill a little way and remembered that there were other people perhaps waiting for her in her house who felt anything but love for her and who could well engender hate if one wasn’t on guard continually.
But all through the night her Savior would be watching over her. And He would also be there in the day, too, when problems thickened and storms arose.
Then she turned into her own street and walked up the hill and was surprised to find her home ablaze with light. Lights in every window, even up to the third story. Someone must have been rummaging. Of course Hattie hadn’t discovered that yet or the lights would have been promptly turned off. But what could be the occasion of the other lights? Every room visible from the front and one side had a light in every window. Only the windows in Grandmother’s locked room were dark. She was thankful for that. She had worried a little about Corliss. There was no telling if she would not even get the ax and break the door if she took the notion. She was that way, and she was so determined to take possession of that particular room, just because it was forbidden, perhaps. But Dale was greatly anxious to protect the room from desecrating prying hands and to keep it as far as possible just as Grandmother had left it. She could not bear to have it disturbed, not yet.
But now Dale hurried on, for the sounds that reached her were a bit hilarious, as if a party was under way. But who were the people?
As she reached the gate, it became apparent that the crowd in the house was not only jovial but decidedly boisterous, and one voice sounded actually drunk! Oh dear! Now what could be going on?
There were two men on the front porch smoking long cigars. There was a noisy bunch of youngsters on the side porch, glasses and plates in their hands, talking in loud screaming voices and beside themselves with laughter.
Unholy laughter it sounded like. But of course she must not judge them. They were young. That was Corliss’s style. But oh, it didn’t sound like Grandmother’s house! What should she do? Did she have to stand this?
A glance toward the living room showed her several tables set around the room, and two separate groups were sitting around the tables playing some kind of a card game, between times taking sips from glasses that contained some dark liquid. Well, it looked like a party all right, whoever the people might be, and the sounds of hilarity that boomed out from the simple old house did not seem in keeping with the atmosphere that Grandmother had always had there. Somehow it shocked Dale. Not that she disapproved of laughter and merrymaking; of course not, and neither had Grandmother. But this was not just simple-hearted merrymaking. This was more hilarious merrymaking than seemed in keeping with a beloved place where death had just been to take a dear one away.
With distress in her eyes, Dale slipped softly around to the back of the house to find Hattie, if possible, and discover just what was going on.
She did not have far to search for Hattie, for she stood in the deepest shadow just around the corner by the kitchen door, evidently watching for her.
“What is it, Hattie?” she whispered.
“Oh Miss Dale, I’m certainly thankful you’ve come at last. Such goings on! I did my best to stop it, but she said it was none of my business, so I took myself off where I could watch and not be seen. They think I’ve gone to bed, but I couldn’t sleep with the likes of this goin’ on, and I’m just certain they’ve broke into the sideboard drawer and took the best napkins, and they’re usin’ the Spode plates Grandma liked so much and only got out for her lovingest company,” wailed the woman in a subdued whisper.
“Never mind, Hattie; don’t let them hear you. Who are they, do you know? People who called to see Aunt Blanche?”
“Naw. They’s just a pick-up crowd. Some that old Buffington brang along and some she brang over from the hotel! She come out into the kitchen and says they was gonna have a party and if I wanted to make some cakes and wait on her company, she’d give me a whole dollar for the evening. I said no, I worked for you, and I couldn’t do nothin’ you hadn’t told me to do, and anyhow I was tired and half sick and I was goin’ to bed. So I went off and ‘tended like I was goin’ up to my room. But I come right down soon as I heard tell what she was doin’. She went to the telephone, and she called up a lotta numbers, and she got a case of liquor sent over from the hotel and a lot of cakes and ice creams and things, and then she rafted round the furniture till you wouldn’t never know the place. And Miss Corliss, she went out and searched up a couple’a soldiers and a drunken sailor, and that brother of hers brought three of the toughest girls I’ve seen in this town, besides one boy, Greek Lufty, who has just come home from reform school! Listen to ’em sing them sickenin’ songs. It worse’n ever anythin’ comes over the radio. Now Miss Dale, what ya goin’ to do? We can’t have no goin’s on like this is Grandma’s place, now she’s gone.”
Dale had been thinking rapidly as Hattie talked. “No,” she said thoughtfully. “Wait. Let me think! I’ll tell you, Hattie. Suppose you run over to Mrs. Relyea’s back door—I see there’s a light in the kitchen there yet—and ask her if you may call up somebody on her telephone. Tell her there’s so much noise over here with my aunt’s friends that we couldn’t phone without them all hearing. And then you go in and call up Mr. Granniss’s number and ask him if he and Mrs. Granniss can come over here quickly, that I need them both in a hurry.”
“Yes ma’am! That’s a good idea.”
“If he wants to know what it’s all about, tell him my aunt has a very noisy party here and I don’t know how I can quiet it down. He’ll understand, and he promised to help any time.”
Dale stood still in the darkness of the backyard and tried to think how this thing was going to work out. Suppose Mr. Granniss was not at home? Suppose Hattie came back having failed to reach him? What should she do? There wasn’t a neighbor she cared to bother to help her. Indeed, they were mostly quiet women or shy men. They wouldn’t be able to get anywhere with that crowd in there. It would take a person with some degree of sophistication to deal with a problem like this. In fact, there were only a few lights downstairs in any house along the street, indicating that her neighbors were going to bed at this hour. They were early risers, most of them war-workers in some way. Poor things! They must have been annoyed at the unusual tumult on their quiet street. Her cheeks burned with mortification as she thought of explanations she would have to give to a few who were always wondering about anything unusual.
Then suddenly Hattie was beside her, looming out of the darkness, all out of breath from hurrying over the rough grass so her footsteps would not be heard on the walk. By the party.
“He’s comin’,” panted Hattie, “right away, he said, and he said to tell you not to worry. It’ll be all right. He’s bringin’ somebody with him, and he’ll see that they understand the situation. Mrs. Granniss is comin’, too. Now, what all you want I should do?”
“Well, I think I’ll have to go in and do something,” said Dale with a troubled glance toward the house. “Suppose you slip in and stay where you can hear if I need you. Is there anything around in the kitchen that needs clearing up? Just seem to be busy, you know.”
“There’s plenty,” said Hattie grimly. “There’s a whole lot of bottles in some kind of a contraption, right in the middle of my kitchen floor. They come out as big as you please and open up their bottles and cut their cake, and they took our best dishes and broke one right before my face, when they first asked me to serve, and they was mad ’cause I said I worked only for you and under your orders. They was hoppin’ mad.”
“Well,” said Dale, “I’ll go in and see what I can do. Perhaps they will go home of their own accord and we can phone Mr. Granniss not to come.”
“Not them, they won’t. They ain’t that kind! You’ll see!”
So Dale went into the house the front way and paused in the living room door. “Oh,” she said with well-feigned surprise, “you have guests, Aunt Blanche. It is nice that you were not lonely. I didn’t know that you had friends living near.”
Dale looked around with her sweet engaging smile and hoped her hands were not trembling. She did not know how very sweet and young and beautiful she looked, with the quick color in her cheeks and her eyes so starry bright. The guests looked up in a
mazement, and one sophisticated woman from the hotel asked, “Why, who is this, Mrs. Huntley? I did not know you had a young niece. Won’t she come and play with us? That will just make up for Buff, if he really has to go.”
Aunt Blanche froze into haughtiness and performed a few reluctant introductions, beginning with, “Oh Dale, is that you? I understood you were to be quite late tonight.”
Then the men drew near, including the lawyer Buffington, quite openly admiring the pretty newcomer. There arose a clamor for Dale to take off her hat and join them in their game, and one of the men hurried to her with a glass of wine.
“You’ll have a glass of wine first, won’t you, Miss Huntley? And shall I get you a piece of cake?”
Looking up, Dale caught a glimpse of an angry, jealous Corliss scowling, but somehow she was enabled to keep on smiling as she shook her head courteously. “No, thank you. Nothing to eat or drink. And I don’t play cards, so I’m sure I wouldn’t be any addition to your number. But now, if you’ve all quite finished your refreshments, I’ll have Hattie remove the plates and glasses, if you don’t mind. You see, I have some friends coming to see me shortly. So I thought it would look a bit tidier if we just got rid of the dirty dishes.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake!” said the aunt, rising in anger. “You have people coming here at this hour? You have no right to do that, right in the middle of my party!”
“Sorry, Aunt Blanche. But you didn’t tell me you were having a party.” Dale smiled.
“Oh for Pete’s sake!” Corliss shouted furiously. “Can you beat that?”
“Well Dale, you know now, so go to the phone at once and call them. Tell them they can come tomorrow night or some other time but you find it isn’t convenient now.”
“I can’t very well do that Aunt Blanche, for they are just arriving at the door now.”
“Oh, certainly you can! I’ll send Corliss or Powelton out to inform them the house is occupied and they’ll have to come again.”