“Biblically?”
“Jesus said it is more blessed to give than to receive.”
“Jack!” Mrs. Hill scolded. “She’s scared and she’s serious.”
“She needs a good night’s sleep in a safe home,” he said. “And she’s found it.”
Elisabeth did not drift off until the sun streamed through the window in the Hills’ guestroom.
By the following summer, Elisabeth had settled into a routine she found wholly satisfying. Two poor families, a traveling book salesman, and two female students of the Sage Business College kept the Bishop Boarding House hopping. Will did well enough at Fairbanks-Morse that he could afford help, and so a cleaning lady and a cook also moved in.
Elisabeth still suffered bleak moments when the tragedies of her life occupied her, but overall she believed she was maturing. She was happy at church, fulfilled if not challenged in her work at Snyder’s, and enjoying the bustling activity at home. She’d had to discourage the advances of the book peddler, first informing him she was still in mourning over her fiancé and finally admitting that her heart was already set on another.
“May I ask whom?” he said.
“Forgive me for not answering,” she said, “and I’ll forgive you for asking.”
Elisabeth saw Will at breakfast and frequently rode home with him after work. She soon quit hiding her loving glances and knowing looks. These were not returned, however, and she had to resist the temptation to remind him that her official period of mourning was about to end. Telling him would spoil everything.
“Are you melancholy today?” he asked her one Sunday morning, early in June.
“Actually I’m quite well today, Will, thank you. Do I appear out of sorts?”
“No. But it was a year ago today we heard the news.”
She loved that he included himself. “God has been good,” she said.
“From anyone else that would sound hollow,” he said.
“I never say that lightly.”
When Will still had not made any advances toward her a week later, Elisabeth grew frustrated. Had she not been forward enough, clear enough in the fall when she first broached the subject? She had spoken inappropriately then and would not do so again, but surely his memory could not be that bad.
The Fourth of July, with its attendant social activities, came and went, and Elisabeth began to despair. Her admiration for Will had blossomed first into true love and now longing. They belonged together, and she wanted the world to know. She wanted to be seen in public with him, to date him enough to make holding hands expected. She wanted him to court her, to hold her, to kiss her.
Obedience had been a bitter pill, and while Will’s reticence didn’t compare with the loss of her father and her fiancé, what was she to do with herself? She was interested in no one else, and had no interest in a future as a spinster. Did she not deserve some modicum of happiness? Would God deprive her now of the man he had placed in her path since childhood?
It was August before Will Bishop made his move. Elisabeth was so used to being disappointed that she almost missed it. He began at dinner with other boarders present. “Have you heard about the homecoming parade September 1?” he asked. He was looking at Elisabeth, but he had not addressed her.
Book Man answered. “Sorry I’ll have to miss it. Should be quite a spectacle.”
“What is it?” Elisabeth said idly.
“A celebration honoring the returning soldiers and sailors from the Great War.”
Elisabeth was stricken; memories of Ben’s loss washed over her. She put her fork down but did not want to draw attention to herself by leaving the table.
“The whole town will turn out,” Will said.
Elisabeth wanted to say, “Don’t be so sure.”
“I’d love to take you,” he said. Elisabeth was not paying attention.
Someone said, “Did I just hear Will ask to escort Miss LeRoy?” Elisabeth looked up with a start. Will was smiling at her. “Yes, you did,” he said.
Elisabeth burst into tears.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Elisabeth skipped breakfast to avoid seeing Will. She walked all the way to the drugstore, then felt faint by midmorning. She ate half a box of mints, which normally settled her stomach. These only intensified her hunger until every notion in the store looked edible.
If I can scare off burglars, she told herself, I can endure hunger until lunchtime. During her half-hour break at noon, Elisabeth planned to slip next door for a sandwich at the counter of the five and dime. Meanwhile, she would wait on customers, run the cash register, sweep floors, and do whatever else she was told.
And she would feel sorry for herself.
By eleven-thirty, with store traffic virtually nil, Elisabeth was woozy. Granted permission to move up her lunchtime half an hour, she gratefully hurried next door. The elderly Gertrude flashed a smile as Elisabeth sat at the counter. “Early today, aren’t we?”
“Famished!”
“The usual?”
“Please.”
Dr. James LeRoy had been fond of saying, “Hunger is the best seasoning.” Elisabeth had never found that truer than today. But her father had also been skeptical of any remedial claims for Coca-Cola, though many swore by it. Going by his further pronouncement that “it certainly shouldn’t be harmful, enjoyed in moderation,” Elisabeth ordered one as a sort of dessert.
“Shall I make it two?” Gertrude said.
“Oh, my, no.”
“You’re about to have company.”
Elisabeth looked out the window. Will’s car sat in front of the drugstore. Sure enough, a minute later he had been directed to the five and dime. She stiffened but was impressed with his sense of purpose. He entered with such determination that she was transported to a childhood memory of his buying penny candy in this same store, too shy to speak, pointing to his selections and handing over his coins.
Now he removed his cap, ran a hand through his hair, and nodded to the women. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here in time to take you to lunch, Elspeth,” he said.
“To ask me, you mean,” she said, feeling testy.
“Of course. Would you join me at a table?”
Elisabeth hesitated, as if thinking about it. How perfect that he had left his office to seek her out. Gertrude busied herself, appearing to try to conceal a grin.
“I’m nearly finished, Will,” Elisabeth said.
“Which means you will or you won’t?”
Elisabeth sighed and rose. Will carried her drink and her napkin to a table, pulled out her chair, then excused himself while he got a Coca-Cola for himself. “You should eat,” she said.
“I had breakfast.”
She raised a brow. “To what do I owe the honor?”
He sipped and dabbed his mouth. “You leave the dinner table in tears and ignore me this morning, but this is an honor?”
She leveled her eyes at him. “It’s always an honor to see you, Will. Especially when you’re man enough to apologize.”
He leaned forward. “I’m new at this, Elspeth. I didn’t even realize what I had done until a couple hours after dinner. I wasn’t thinking.”
“You know then why it would be impossible for me to go to—”
He straightened. “Are you going to make me grovel?”
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just—”
“No, Elspeth, I’m the one apologizing. I don’t mean to make this your fault. But yes, of course I understand how inappropriate my request was.”
“Especially in front of people.”
He gazed at her, unsmiling. “You are going to make me grovel.”
“No!” she said. “Will, I’m forgiving you. I just want you to know the extent of the pardon.”
Finally he smiled. “I have to get back,” he said.
“Aren’t you going to get some lunch?”
“I’m all right. Thanks for asking. I’ll walk you back.”
“I can’t tell you how much this means to me, Will,” she s
aid on their way out.
“Yes, you can. You can allow me to find a suitable occasion we can enjoy together.”
“I would enjoy that.”
He stood awkwardly in front of Snyder’s. She had been seen alighting from and entering his vehicles for months, but everyone considered theirs a familial relationship, a friendship of convenience and proximity. She was the bereaved fiancée, he the old chum who had taken her in.
But now they stood in the noon sun, she feeling as if the world was watching and he apparently even more self-conscious. With a grin he thrust out his hand, she shook it, and they parted.
He would, she decided, make a fine husband.
Their courtship was just long enough to be appropriate, but they were soon seen together so often, hand in hand, sometimes arm in arm, that Elisabeth assumed all of Three Rivers merely awaited the wedding announcement. She knew Will enough to know that he had dated only one other person, the fleeting Lucy, and that they had never progressed to so much as holding hands. Elisabeth had kissed only one other man, and while Will confessed he didn’t like to dwell on that, he understood. “You were in love, you were engaged. Naturally you were affectionate.”
They took long evening walks until they had talked themselves out. Their first kisses were tentative. He had no experience, she little more. Without words, she taught him to be gentle, to give as well as take a kiss.
There were few revelations in their extended talks. Elisabeth and Will had known each other so long that the only catching up they had to do was revealing what each had thought about the other at various ages. “I always thought you were the prettiest girl in the church,” he said one evening as they sat on a wooden bench near the Rocky River.
“Didn’t everyone?” she teased.
“And the humblest.”
Families strolled by, the adults fanning themselves as kids skipped rocks on the river and taunted each other. A little girl jumped in fright, to her brother’s glee, when a fish leaped from the water and splashed back in.
“I considered you just another boy, after wrestling with you in the nursery and enduring your roughhousing.”
“By the time I was ten,” Will said, “I knew I would marry you.”
“You did not!”
He nodded. “Positively.”
“How did you know?”
He shrugged. “I just did.”
“God didn’t tell you that early, did he?”
Will laughed. “Not until summer camp. I should have kept that revelation to myself, shouldn’t I?”
“You scared me.”
“Don’t I know it.” He shook his head. “I was such a fool.”
“No, you weren’t.” She settled into his embrace, smiling at kids who giggled and pointed. Though the sky was still light, a pale moon appeared.
“I had been in love with you for years by then,” he said.
“Since you were ten?”
“No. I knew I was going to marry you at ten, but I didn’t know anything about love. I fell in love with you the night you went forward at the protracted meetings.”
“You went forward too!”
“We were kindred spirits, but I wouldn’t have known what to call it.”
He stood and tugged her toward a walkway shrouded by a leafy canopy. It was cooler there and quiet. They walked with fingers entwined, serenaded by cicadas. “I fell in love with you gradually, Will.”
“Once you had no other options.”
“Careful.”
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I feel blessed now, because you have many other options. But you were not free, once you began seeing Ben.”
“By choice.” She stopped and leaned back against a tree. The bark felt cooler than the air. “I didn’t want to be free.”
“Of course.”
“I really believed I loved him.”
“And I’m sure you did.” Will thrust his hands deep into his pockets and appeared ill at ease with where the conversation had led.
“Come here, sweetheart,” she said, reaching for him. He stepped closer but kept his hands in his pockets. She cupped his face in her hands. “I can tell you honestly, and not just because he’s gone, that I never loved him the way I love you.”
“Elspeth …”
“It’s true. It was not the same. And why should it have been? It was not meant to be.”
“You thought it was.”
“Sure I did.”
“Even after I told you you were to marry me.”
“Did you even know I had fallen for Ben when you told me that?”
“I was afraid you had, but I didn’t know. All I knew was that he had walked you back to your cabin the night I offered to.”
Elisabeth pulled his face to hers and kissed him. “I fell in love with you watching you with your family, especially your mother and your nieces and nephews.”
He sat back and studied her. “Not long after you moved in.”
“Not very long.”
“You fell in love with me then.” It was more statement than question.
“I did.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“In love?”
“As a matter of fact, I was terribly jealous of Lucy.”
Will stood and moved away, staring into the distance. Elisabeth went to him. “What is it?”
“I was so heartsick over you at the time.”
“I sensed that, but you didn’t pressure me at all.”
He put both hands on his head, as if in agony. “There was a reason for that! You were taken, remember?”
“You didn’t know I was engaged. I had told no one.”
“But you had pledged yourself.”
She nodded.
“Ben didn’t die until June last year,” Will said.
“I should have said I began to see the real you, to understand the depth of your character, to appreciate you.”
“You said you fell in love with me while you were engaged to Ben.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Will appeared in turmoil. “You were partly to blame,” she said. “You told me God intended us to be together.”
“I should never have said anything.”
“But you made me think. You were right, I had not prayed about it. The truth is, Will, I never had peace about marrying Ben. I don’t know what I would have done if he had come back, ready to push ahead.”
“You would have had to marry him or break your promise.”
“I’m afraid so.”
Will put his arm around her waist and walked her back to the river’s edge. The sky was growing dark. “There we were,” he said, “living in my house, me loving you beyond all reason and looking for reasons to show it, and everything pointed toward your marrying Ben.”
“It must have been awful for you, Will.”
“Apparently it was worse than that for you.”
She nodded, remembering that her troubling feelings for Will and her lack of peace about Ben had been swept away by the news of his death. “You were so sweet when I was grieving.”
“I was grieving too. It was an awful loss, and I wondered if my prayers had caused it. I was so convinced you and I belonged together that I prayed every day that God would make it clear to you. Well, he sure did, didn’t he?”
“Ben, you can’t think that way.”
He winced. “Do you realize what you just called me?”
“Oh, Will, I’m sorry. We need to put this behind us. I was not meant to marry Ben. If he had come back, God would have found another way to put you and me together.”
“You might have broken the engagement?”
“I would have had to. I could not have married him with conflicted feelings.”
It seemed everyone else had drifted from the riverbank. “Your grief was so deep.”
“I loved Ben. I still grieve over him. But I did not love him the way I love you. You deserve to know that.”
Elisabeth wanted to reestabli
sh good memories associated with her birthday, and so she set the wedding day for January 1, 1920, at Christ Church. As a courtesy she invited her Aunt Agatha, who, Marlin Beck informed her, had moved to Sturgis. Elisabeth received no response.
It was the coldest day of the year, but the skies were clear and the sanctuary full. Beck and his wife attended, as did Dr. LeRoy’s nurse, who hurried in late and quickly approached the bride, who was moments away from her grand entrance from the foyer. She whispered in Elisabeth’s ear, causing her to burst into gales of laughter.
“What?” Frances Childs demanded.
Elisabeth shook her head, desperate to settle down and refusing to repeat what she had just been asked, especially in front of Pastor Hill. He would also enter from the back in a departure from protocol, as Elisabeth had selected him not only to officiate, but also to give her away.
“As your matron of honor, I command you to tell me what she said!”
Only after the ceremony, when the two had a moment of privacy, did Elisabeth tell Frances. “You remember who she is?”
“Of course! The one your dad got to tell you about you-know-what. Now what did she say?”
“She asked if I needed a refresher course before my honeymoon!”
Frances squealed and doubled over.
“If you tell a soul, Frances, I swear—”
“If? If? I can’t think of a soul I won’t tell!”
She went away laughing. Elisabeth felt as if her blush would never dissipate. Every time Will asked what was so funny, she burst into laughter anew.
They honeymooned in a cabin at a little lodge outside Plainwell. She was nervous and felt conspicuous when they checked in, assuming the proprietor and everyone he knew were aware of their business. But she found Will so considerate and gentle that she knew she would cherish living with him forever.
Upon their return, Elisabeth was puzzled when Will drove not to his big old home in the fourth ward, but to a beautiful estate in the first, not far from where she grew up.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Your wedding present.”
He had to be joking. They parked in front of sprawling, palatial estates that backed up to the Rocky River and were owned by bankers, doctors, and industrial moguls. In fact, immediately to the south was the well-known Porter home, which featured “Lover’s Bridge,” a rustic footbridge that led to an island in the river.
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