GI Brides

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Oh,” said the girl, with almost contempt in her voice, “and what are they to separate people? Why should just things like that have made us almost strangers, when we could have been such good friends?”

  He looked at her with a deep reverence.

  “If I had known you felt that way, perhaps it wouldn’t have taken me so long to decide whether I ought to come to you today.”

  “Oh, I am so glad you came!” she said impulsively. “But come, let’s sit down!” Blythe, suddenly aware that her hands were still being held closely, flashed a rosy light into her cheeks as she drew the young man over toward the couch and made him sit down beside her.

  “Now,” she said, “tell me all about it. You came for some special reason, something you had to tell me, Susan said when she announced you.”

  “Yes,” said the soldier, suddenly reverting to his first shyness and to the realization of his appalling impertinence in what he had to say. “Yes, I have something special to tell you. I know I’m presuming in speaking of it, and perhaps you will think me crazy for daring to tell you. I’m sure I never would have dared to come if it hadn’t been that I’m in the army and that I have volunteered to undertake a very special and dangerous commission about which I am not allowed to speak. It is enough to say that it means almost certain death for me. And that’s all right with me. I went into it with this knowledge, and it’s little enough to do for my country. But when I came to look the fact in the face and get ready for my departure, which is probably to be tonight, I found there was something I wanted to do before I go. There was just one person to whom I wanted to say good-bye. And that was you. I have nobody else. My mother has been gone two years. She was all I had. My other relatives, the few that are left, live far away and do not care anyway. But there was just one person whom I wanted to see before I left, and that was you. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Mind?” said Blythe, lifting dewy eyes to his. “I think that is wonderful! Why should I mind?”

  “But we are practically strangers, you know,” he said with hesitation. “And in the ordinary run of life, if there were no war and things were going normally, we would probably never have been anything but strangers. I am not likely ever to become one whom your family would welcome as one of your friends—”

  “Oh, but you don’t understand my family,” said the girl, putting out an impulsive hand to touch his arm. “My family is not like that. They are not a lot of snobs!” She was speaking with intense fervor, and her eyes implored him to believe.

  “Oh no,” he said, “I would not call anything that belonged to you by such a name. I don’t want you to think that, please! It was never even in my thoughts. I have only thought of them as being fine, upstanding, conservative people, with a high regard for the formalities of life. It would not be natural for them to pick out a ‘poor boy’ as a friend for their cherished daughter. But I thought, since this is probably the last time that I may be seeing you on this earth, it would do no harm for me to tell you what you have always been to me. You have been an inspiration to me from even my little boyhood when I first saw you in school, and I have loved to watch you. And in my thoughts I have always honored you. I felt as if I would like to tell you that, before I go. I hope it will not annoy you to be told, and that you will remember me as a friend who deeply admired—and—yes, loved you from afar, and who for a long time has prayed for you every night. Will you forgive me for saying these things?”

  Impulsively he put out his hands, laid them upon hers again, and looked at her with pleading eyes. But her own eyes were so filled with sudden tears that she could not see the look in his.

  “Forgive!” she said in a small, choking voice. “Why, there is nothing to forgive. It seems very wonderful to me that you should say these things, that you should have felt this way. And of all the beautiful thoughts, that you should pray for me! Why, I never knew you even noticed me. And I’m glad, glad, now, that you have told me! It seems the loveliest thing that ever came into my life. But oh, why do you have to go away? When do you have to go?”

  He gave a quick glance down at his wristwatch and said with distress in his voice, “I ought to be on my way now. I have things to do before I take the noon train. I waited on purpose until the last minute, that I might not be tempted to stay too long and annoy you.”

  He sprang to his feet, but her hands clung to his and she rose with him.

  “Oh, but I can’t let you go like this,” she pleaded, her eyes looking deep into his, her face lifted with the bright tears on her cheeks. “I can’t let you go. You have just told me that you love me, and we must have a little time to get acquainted before you go. I—oh—I think I must have been loving you, too, all this time.” Her own glance dropped shyly. “There was no one else ever who seemed to me as wonderful as you were, even when I was a little girl. Please don’t go yet. We must have more time to get our hearts acquainted.”

  He looked down at her, his very soul in his eyes, his face deeply stirred, and then suddenly his arms were about her and he drew her close, his face against her tear-wet cheek, his lips upon hers.

  “Darling!” he breathed softly.

  She was clinging to him now, trembling in his arms.

  “Darling, if I had dreamed it could be like this!”

  Again he held her close.

  “God forgive me! I’ve got to leave you. I’m a soldier under orders, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said softly. “I must not keep you. But oh, I wish you had come sooner, so that we might have had a little time together.”

  “I’m afraid my coming has only made you unhappy!”

  “No, don’t say that! It is a beautiful happiness just to know what you have told me. And you know—I shall be praying, too. May God take care of you and keep you and bring you back!”

  He took her in his arms again, and their farewell kiss was a precious one to remember. And then suddenly a clock above the stairs with a silvery chime told the hour, and he sprang away.

  “I must go at once!” he said.

  “Yes, of course,” gasped the girl sorrowfully.

  It was incredible how hard it was to separate when they had only just come together. It was breathtaking.

  Hand in hand they went out to the hall, to the front door, trying to say many last things for which there wasn’t time, things that had just begun to crowd to their attention.

  “But you will write to me?” said Blythe, lifting pleading eyes. “You will write at once?”

  He looked at her with a sudden light in his eyes.

  “Oh, may I do that?” he asked, as if it was more than he had dared to hope. “I hadn’t planned to hang on to your life. I don’t want to hinder you in any way. I want you to have a happy time, and—to—well, forget me. Think of me just as somebody who has gone out of your life. I mean it. I don’t want the thought of me and of what I have said to hinder you from having friends and going places. I want you to be your dear happy self, just as you have been all through the years before you knew I cared. That will be the best way to keep me happy and give me courage to go through with what I have undertaken. I mean it.”

  Her hands quivered in his and clung more closely.

  “How could you think I could forget you and go on being happy? You have told me that you love me, and it has—well, just crowned my life!” She looked up at him with a kind of radiance in her face that beamed on his heart like a ray of sunshine and warmed him through and through. He had been so humble about telling her, that he hadn’t dreamed it would bring this response. It thrilled him indescribably.

  “Darling!” he breathed softly and caught her to him again, holding her close.

  Then upstairs another clock with a silvery voice chimed a belated warning, and they sprang apart.

  “You must go!” It was the girl who said the word. “You mustn’t let me make you late. And—how can I write to you? We have so much to say to one another.”

  “Oh, yes, I forgot!”

 
He plunged his hand into his pocket and brought out a card.

  “A letter sent to this address will be forwarded to me wherever I am. Good-bye, my precious one! You have given me great joy by the way you have received me, and you haven’t any idea how hard it is for me to leave you now.”

  He touched his lips reverently to her brow and then dashed out the door.

  She watched him flashing down the street, her heart on fire with joy and sorrow. Joy that he loved her, sorrow that he must go away into terrible danger, or what he was supposed to be going to do, but he had spoken as if it were plenty. “Probable death!” he had said, and yet even that terrible prospect had not been able to still the joy that was in her heart. Whatever came, he was hers to love, she was his! Whatever came there was this, and for the present she could only be glad. By and by she knew that anxiety would come, and fear, and anguish perhaps, but still, he would be hers.

  How strange that she should feel this way about that boy with whom she had scarcely had a speaking acquaintance. A word, a look, a hovering smile, all the most formal, had been their intercourse thus far. And yet he had loved her so that he could not go away into possible death without telling her how he felt. And she had loved him well enough to recognize it at once, though she had never used that word even in her thoughts with regard to him. It seemed as if it were something that God had handed to her as a surprise. Something He had been planning for her all through her life, and she hugged the thought to her heart that she had always admired him, even when he was a little boy. He had beautiful, intelligent eyes that always seemed to understand, a tumble of dark curly hair, and a way of disappearing into thin air as soon as the business of school was over for the day. He never seemed to take part in social affairs of the school—he just vanished. But his location in the room had always seemed to Blythe like a light for the whole class. Something clear and dependable to give their grade tone. It had been that way right along through the grades.

  Just once in those years they had stood side by side at the blackboard working out a problem, their chalk clicking, tapping along almost in unison, driven by sharp brains, quick fingers—and they had whirled around with lifted hands almost at the same instant, the only two in the class that had finished. They had given one another a quick look, a flashing smile, and that smile and look had lingered in Blythe’s memory like a pleasant thing, and helped to complete the picture she had of that wise young scholar with a well-controlled twinkle of merriment in his eyes.

  The memory flashed at her now as she stood on the steps of her father’s house and watched him stride down the driveway. She followed down to the end of the drive and watched him away down the sidewalk. Then she saw the bus coming. Was he going to make it? She held her breath to watch. Oh, had she made him late to something most important? That would be an unhappy thing to remember, if she had.

  Then she saw him swing on inside the door just as it was about to close. Was he looking back? He was too far away for her to see.

  But there were footsteps. Was someone coming? There were also tears on the verge of arrival. She turned like a flash, hurried up to the house, and vanished inside just as one of her friends reached the gateway and called out to her. But she was gone. She couldn’t, couldn’t talk to anyone now. Not after what had happened. Idle chatter of friends and neighbors would put a blur over the precious thoughts that were in her heart, if she allowed them to come now, before they were firmly fixed in memory. The morning was too rare and precious to be mingled with the commonplaces of life. She must get away by herself and savor this wonderful thing that had come to her.

  So Blythe sped to her room and locked her door on the world that might have interfered.

  For a moment she paused with her hands spread behind her on the closed door and looked about her. It was the same room it had been a few minutes before. There lay her coat and hat across the chair, just where she had dropped them when Susan told her she had a caller. There on the bureau lay her handbag. She had been all ready to go down to that Red Cross class, and of course she ought to be going at once. But she couldn’t just walk out and go down to sew, until she had a chance to catch her breath and realize what had happened. Anyway, there were women enough there to run the class without her. It would be all right for her to wait just a few minutes and get her poise again. If she went down at once there would be a kind of glory-shine in her face that everyone would see. She was sure some of those catty women who had so much to say about other girls would ask her about it. They never let any little thing go by. It seemed sometimes as if they were putting a magnifying glass over her to study her every time she came into the room. The questions they asked were impertinent questions about her home life, her family and friends, just so they would be able to tell about it afterward. “My friend Miss Bonniwell went to the orchestra concert last night. Yes, she went with young Seavers. You know. They run around together a lot.” She could fairly hear them saying things like that. In fact, she had overheard some of their talk that ran a good deal after that fashion, and she couldn’t bear the thought that they should look into her face today and, by some occult power they seemed to possess, search out that grand and glorious thing that had happened to her this morning.

  She sank into her easy chair and put her head back happily. This was her own haven. No one had a right to call her out from here.

  Then she closed her eyes and drifted back to the moment when she had gone downstairs, scarcely able to believe the message Susan had brought, that Charlie Montgomery, her childhood’s admiration, was really down there and had come to see her.

  Oh, she had thought, it probably wasn’t anything that mattered—some technicality, perhaps, about the business of their alumni. Though she couldn’t remember that he had been interested in their plans about the alumni, but perhaps they had drawn him into it in some way. Those had been her thoughts as she hurried downstairs with her hands out. Had she been too eager, shown her pleasure too plainly at first?

  But no. He loved her! He had come to tell her that he loved her. Amazing truth! That anything so unforeseen should have come to her. The joy in her heart seemed almost to stifle her.

  And then she went over the whole experience, bit by bit. Her delight when she recognized him. Her instant knowledge of her own heart, that he was beloved! Her hands held out to greet him, the touch of his hands, the thrill! Was she dreaming, or had this all been true? Oh, if he could but have stayed a few minutes longer. Just so that they might have talked together and gotten their bearings. And he was going away, into what he seemed to think was pretty sure death! Could it be that they would have to wait for heaven to talk together? Oh, the joy and the sorrow of it! The memory of his arms about her, his lips on hers! It was wonderful! It was beautiful!

  And it wasn’t anything she could tell anyone about! Not yet, anyway. Not even her mother. Her mother wouldn’t understand a boy she never had known telling her he loved her. She couldn’t bear to bring the beauty of that newfound love into the light of criticism. And that would be inevitable if she tried to make it plain. They would only think he was one of those “fresh” soldiers, as her mother frequently disapproved of some of the very young, quite exuberant boys at the canteen. And her mother would never understand how she could have so far forgotten her upbringing as to let a stranger kiss her, hold her in his arms, even if he had gone to school with her years ago. No, this was something she would keep to herself for the present. Herself—and God—perhaps. She didn’t feel that she knew God very well. She would want to pray to Him to guard her beloved as he went forth into unknown perils. She would have to learn to pray. She would want to do this thing right, and she did not feel that she knew much about prayer, that is, effectual prayer! Oh, of course she had said her prayers quite formally ever since she was a tiny child, quite properly and discreetly. But seldom had she prayed for things she really needed. She had seldom really needed anything. Needs had always been supplied for her before she was even aware that they were needs. But now, here
was a need. She wanted with all her heart to have Charlie safe and to have him come back to her. She wanted to feel his arms about her again, to see him look into her eyes the way he had done when he told her so reverently that he loved her—that he had prayed for her.

  Where could she learn to pray right? Since she could not tell anyone else of her need, would God teach her?

  And just then Susan tapped at her door.

  “You’re wanted on the telephone, Miss Blythe,” she said, and Blythe’s heart leaped with sudden hope. Could it be possible that Charlie had found a way to telephone her?

  “Coming, Susan,” she sang out, springing from her chair and hurrying to the door.

  Chapter 2

  Charlie Montgomery, striding down Wolverton Drive, was quickening his pace with every stride until he was fairly hurling himself along, straining his eyes toward the highway. Was that the bus coming? Yes, it was. And he must catch it! He couldn’t possibly do all that was to be done before he left unless he did.

  But the glad wonder was in his heart even though he hadn’t time to cast a thought in its direction. Was he going to make it? He scarcely had breath for the shrill whistle that rent the air and arrested the driver as he was about to start on his route, but it reached the driver’s ear, and looking around, he saw the soldier coming. One had to wait for a soldier these days, of course.

  Just in time Charlie swung onto the bus and was started on his way; and not till then, as he dropped into the seat that a smiling old gentleman made beside him, did his mind revert to the great joy that he was carrying within him.

  He had come this way full of fear and trembling lest he was doing the wrong thing. Lest he would be laughed at, scorned, for daring to call on the young woman upon whom his heart had dared to set itself. She had not only received him graciously, warmly, gladly, but she had listened to his words, had owned that she loved him, had let him hold her in his arms and kiss her. That much was the theme of his joy-symphony. It was enough for the first minute or two till he got his breath.