GI Brides

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Oh, no, not gloomy!” said her husband. “It is full of peace.”

  Blythe and her father were very quiet while the mother read that letter, and she held it thoughtfully in her hand for a full minute after finishing before she spoke in a reserved, husky voice: “Very—commendable—I’m sure.”

  Then she handed the letter to Blythe, and the three, without further talk, went quietly up to their rooms.

  When the father and mother had silently prepared for sleep, and all sounds had ceased from behind Blythe’s closed door, her parents, now lying in their beds, staring wide awake in the dark room, stirred uneasily. At last the mother began in a fearsome whisper:

  “John, she’ll soon forget him, don’t you think so? She’s so young! You think so, don’t you?”

  There was another silence for a moment and then the father replied:

  “I trust not! No, certainly not! If I thought that Blythe was vapid enough to forget a man like that, I should be in despair about her.”

  “But John! You certainly don’t want your little girl to go mourning all her days for a dream-man; a person she doesn’t really know, and never has. You can’t possibly think she won’t forget him after a little while!”

  “Suppose an angel from heaven should come down and talk with you for an hour? Would you forget that in a little while?” asked her husband.

  “Oh—well, an angel—of course. I wouldn’t forget it, exactly. It would be a kind of a pleasant memory, but it wouldn’t hinder my going right on living a normal life, John, clubs and war work and things like that.”

  “No, I suppose not,” said the man thoughtfully. “Bridge clubs and dinners and the latest fashions of course.”

  “Now, John, you’re being sarcastic. I know you don’t care for bridge, but is that any reason why I shouldn’t play once in a while? I don’t really spend much time at it, especially now that there is so much war work to be done.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” said the disinterested voice of the man.

  “John, you’re not listening to me.”

  “Oh yes, I am.”

  “John, what are you thinking about? You act so absorbed, just as you do when you’ve brought business home with you. John, are you worried about Blythe and that strange boy who dared to upset her before he went away to war?”

  “No,” said John thoughtfully. “I’m less worried about Blythe than I have been for a long time. I’m delighted that she’s interested in such a young man. A fellow with real thoughts in his head, and a sane way of expressing them, I tell you, that young man has got hold of something we all need, in these times especially, a real hold on God, a knowledge of God. And he’s got the kind of courage that won’t fail at anything he has to do. I wish I felt as sure of heaven as he does.”

  “Why, John! How ridiculous! You to talk that way! Why, you’ve been a Christian man for years. You’ve been a trustee of the Presbyterian Church. Of course you’re sure of heaven.”

  “No, Alice, I don’t think being a trustee of any church makes you sure of heaven. It takes more than that, and I never thought about it before. If you want to know what I’m thinking about, that’s it. I was wondering, if I had to go to war, in some job from which I was pretty sure I wouldn’t ever return, I was wondering if I had enough faith in God to take along with me and protect me in danger. Alice, I don’t believe I have.”

  “Nonsense, John! You’re all unstrung by this odd thing that has happened to Blythe. You always did take things that happened to Blythe so terribly to heart. You’ll snap out of it and be your normal self in the morning. I believe you ought to have some vitamins. I’ll get you some in the morning, and see that you take them, too! And now, for pity’s sake, let’s get some sleep. I have an early committee meeting in the morning. Don’t worry about Blythe. She’ll be all right when she wakes up. She’s just excited over this unusual happening, and I don’t blame her a bit. I think it was a perfectly awful thing for that fellow to do, when he had never paid any attention to her before. Don’t you think so, John?”

  “No!” said John shortly. “I think it was a beautiful thing to do, and I wish I might have had a little chance to know a fellow like that. I admire him greatly. I’d like him for a son-in-law, and I hope somehow his God keeps him alive and brings him back to our little girl.”

  “John! How perfectly terrible! I never heard you talk like this before. It seems to me you’ve taken leave of your senses.”

  “On the contrary I’ve been wondering if I’ve ever had any before. You see, Alice, we’ve been walking by the pattern of all our neighbors, and I think the time has come to stop and get a pattern of our own. I’d like to know God better. I think perhaps that’s why war came, to teach us that it was God we needed. Come now, Alice, don’t you honestly feel that it is reassuring for Blythe to have a friend who is religiously inclined instead of wanting to go to nightclubs all the time?”

  “Well, I’m not so sure,” sighed Mrs. Bonniwell. “It’s easy to go too far religiously, of course. I shouldn’t like Blythe to get tied up with a fanatic, would you? And when people talk like that last letter she showed us, they are apt to go too far and become fanatics.”

  “Yes? And just what is a fanatic? Would you define it as being one who knows God too well?”

  “John! Why, you actually sound irreverent, speaking of God in that light, familiar way. I never heard you talk so before.”

  “Well, I’m not sure that I’ve ever been stirred so deeply before as I was by that letter. A young man who is consciously going out to die, with very little hope of returning, to surrender his whole self to the God who made him, and who is really his only hope of eternal life! And he not only has done that, but he has been able to put the thing he has done into clear logical words that have come back to his girl’s father and convinced him that he, too, needs such a Savior.”

  “But John, I don’t like you to talk as if you didn’t have all you need in a Christian way.”

  “Nevertheless, it’s true, Alice, and I’m not going to drop it at this. I’m going to make it my business to find out what that young man says he has found.”

  “Well, all right, John, only please do drop the subject now. I’m very weary. This has been a long, hard day, and the evening was most exciting. I really must get some sleep if I am to run that committee meeting in the morning, and it’s going to take some maneuvering to get everything through and keep every woman satisfied and not at swords’ points with all the rest.”

  “Yes, go to sleep, Alice. We’ll talk of this another time. Good night.”

  There was silence in the room after that, but it was a long time before the master of the house slept.

  And over across the hall, Blythe was down upon her knees beside her bed, praying a real prayer, perhaps her first real prayer since her little childhood’s believing days. For she, too, was seeking the Christ that her beloved had found.

  “Dear God,” she prayed, “won’t You show me the way to see Your Son, Jesus Christ, the way my Charlie has found Him?”

  But the sweet loving mother slept the sleep of the just to get ready for her strenuous committee on the morrow, serene in the knowledge that she was a good Christian woman and did not need to have keen insight into spiritual things, resting in the firm belief that her precious daughter would soon recover from this imagined obsession that she was in love with an unknown stranger who couldn’t possibly be the type of boy that would be suited to a girl as cultured as her daughter.

  And all the while, out in the night world, Daniel Seavers and Anne Houghton, with whom he had happened to be thrown that evening, were seeing life together.

  Anne hadn’t been at all the companion Dan would have chosen to help him forget his annoyance at Mr. Bonniwell’s reception of his gracious propositions. But he had to get through the evening somehow, since his plans were being held in abeyance for a brief space, and perhaps it would be as well to let his future father-in-law see that his daughter wasn’t the only pebble on the beach,
the only girl in the city. Just give him a day to himself and he would come around. If he didn’t, then Dan would wait no longer. He would collect Blythe and they would carry out the threat of an elopement. Of course, that would be one way to get the high hand with a father-in-law. Let him see that Dan meant what he said and would take no orders from anybody from now on. He had obeyed the conventions and asked permission to address Blythe, but if it didn’t bring prompt action, then Dan would just forget the conventions and do as he pleased. He was very sure he could bring Blythe to his way of thinking, if he went about it in the right way, for he had had plenty of years in which to study her and know the best ways to get around her, to bend her to his will. Of course, he wasn’t taking into account the years in which they had been separated by college life, and the explosive power of a new affection that had come into this girl’s life. He was a young bully who had always been accustomed to having his own way, and he intended to have it now without delay.

  So he took the first girl that came along, and it happened to be Anne Houghton. He didn’t particularly admire her, but he knew her to be a good sport on occasion, and she was handy to his need, so he asked her to have dinner with him and take in some nightclubs afterward. Daring and reckless, Anne was, and she fitted in with his disgruntled mood, so they went from one bright spot to another, till they had reached a place where their jaded sensibilities were ready for anything.

  Driving home in the small hours, their way led over Wolverton Drive, and Anne indulged in a few sharp pleasantries about Dan’s erstwhile playmate, Blythe Bonniwell.

  The Bonniwell house, sitting quietly back among its beautiful trees, sheltering its sleeping family with strong comforting walls of stone, looked impregnable under the shadowed waning moon, and it somehow angered both young people.

  “Poor Blythe,” babbled the spiteful Anne, with a tongue let loose by the many drinks she had taken. “She thinks she owns the earth with a gold fence around it, doesn’t she? I’m glad you took a night off from letting her wind you around her pretty little finger and are showing her that you can have a good time with some other girl now and then. It will do her good. She really is getting insufferable.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” drawled Dan lazily. “I never have any trouble bringing her to terms if I want to bad enough. The trouble is, she’s too much under the dominance of a puritanical father and has prudish ideas of what she wants to do. Of course, if I chose, I could take that out of her, if I thought it were worth the trouble. But it’s been good sport to go out with a girl who knows her way about in the world. I don’t know when I’ve had such a good time. We’ll have to try it again sometime. How about it, Anne?”

  “That will be all right with me,” said Anne, with a triumphant ring to her voice. “I like to step out with you, and anytime you want to show that demure little mouse where to get off, you can count on me to help you out. But frankly, I should think you’d be terribly bored with her. I tried to talk with her in the Red Cross class the other day, but we really haven’t two ideas in common. I finally gave it up. And she has such common tastes. She’s always taking up with some poor little scrap of humanity who doesn’t really belong in our crowd. I think it’s a pose, showing how kind and benevolent she can be, you know. But of course, she’s very young.”

  “Yes, quite,” said the young man drowsily. “I think she’ll grow out of it. I’ve known Blythe since we were children, you know. I guess she’d be all right if she could get away from her family. They dominate her entirely too much.”

  They were driving past the Bonniwell place now, and Anne cast baleful glances at the peaceful house in the moonlight. She would show that Bonniwell girl just how much hold she had on Dan Seavers! Just give her two or three more nights like this one, and she would soon have him where she wanted him, and then Blythe might smile her prettiest, but she would have lost her Dan.

  They drew up in front of the Houghton residence, and Dan took care to find the deepest shade, not directly in front of the house, where thick shrubbery hid the car completely.

  “Now,” he said, “we’ve had a good evening. Suppose we rest a bit just to say good night.” He reached his arm and drew Anne close within his clasp. He put her head down on his shoulder, and looking into her face, he slowly stooped and brought his lips to hers, in a hard, passionate kiss, to which Anne responded fervently, her warm soft lips lingering tenderly on his own.

  “That was good,” said Dan, settling down beside her and drawing her closer. “This is cozy, isn’t it? Why didn’t we ever do this before? Boy, I believe I’m tired. It feels good to rest, and you’re a pleasant little body to have around.” Then he laid his lips on hers again.

  Yes, Anne was pretty and responsive, but she hadn’t any money, though she did have “family.” But she lived with a stingy married brother who had a number of children to get his money.

  And down the drive a few blocks away, in a quiet house where dawn was beginning to bring out its protective lines, slept the girl whom Dan had decided to marry because she had plenty of money. The girl of whom he had said he was “fond.” The girl who had a wonderful boyfriend gone to war, and who had just been dedicating her life to finding his Christ.

  On his way home at last, with the streaks of dawn more distinct in the sky now, Dan’s thoughts reverted to Blythe. She had always been shy of any suggestion of love making. She held herself aloof. But what would Blythe be like if she were married to him, and felt it the conventional thing to let herself go? Or would she ever be demonstrative? Boy! Anne Houghton certainly had it over Blythe when it came to showing a man how she felt about him. The touch of her lips was still upon his, and he certainly had had one night to remember. But tomorrow morning he must go to Mr. Bonniwell and deliver an ultimatum. Now or never. Permission for his whole plan, wedding and all, with a hint of a big settlement; or an elopement! Let him have his choice.

  Chapter 14

  Dan presented himself at Mr. Bonniwell’s office very soon after the work of the day had begun, and Mr. Bonniwell was deep into the morning mail.

  When the young man went blustering into the outer office, he told the assistant who met him that he wanted to see Mr. Bonniwell at once. It was very important, and he hadn’t any time to spare.

  Word came back over the telephone to the clerk at the desk that Mr. Bonniwell was very much engaged at present, but though he had not yet sent for Mr. Seavers, it would be all right. He would see him as soon as he could finish his present interview, if he cared to wait. Or if not, Dan might return that afternoon any time after two o’clock.

  Dan frowned.

  “I’ll wait!” he said shortly. “But tell him to make it snappy!” he added.

  The young man at the desk did not, however, transfer this latter sentence over the telephone, and Dan sat down and glowered at the young official. Well, perhaps it was as well to bide his time and get these preliminaries over, but when he was finally married, he certainly would pay his father-in-law back in full for all he had cost him.

  It was almost an hour before a man and a secretary emerged from the inner office and Dan was told that Mr. Bonniwell would see him now. During this time Dan had sighed and writhed and wriggled, and drummed on the table with his fingers, and in every way manifested his impatience. So he was on his feet at once and pranced into the audience chamber with an arrogant manner.

  “Well, you certainly took your time,” he announced impudently to the man he expected to make his father-in-law.

  “Yes?” said Mr. Bonniwell, with an amused lifting of his eyebrows. “And now you are taking mine. Well, sit down.”

  Dan dropped into the most comfortable chair in view and frowned again.

  “Well?” he said sharply. “Let’s get this over with. I’ve waited too long already.”

  “Yes,” said the businessman, with a twinkle, “perhaps you have. So, what I have to say is that you have my permission to talk this matter of marriage over with my daughter. Is that what you want?”

&nb
sp; “Why, yes, of course,” snapped Dan, utterly flabbergasted. He had been much wrought up by the night’s delay he had endured, and had fully expected some kind of a long argument before he got any satisfaction out of the man. He was actually embarrassed to get what he had asked without question.

  “Oh—why, yes,” he began awkwardly. “Well, now, that’s very kind of you, and I appreciate it of course, though I do wish you could have said yes at the beginning without all this forethought. However, what’s done’s done, and I’ll get to work and carry out my plans as fast as possible. I hope you told your wife what is going to happen so she’ll be ready to cooperate with us without holding up the affair any longer. But then, women, I will say, are usually all in favor of anything like a wedding.”

  “But aren’t you forgetting a little matter?” asked the father, watching the young man still amusedly.

  “Forgetting?” said Dan. “Why, no, I’m not forgetting anything. What is it you refer to?”

  “Why, I only gave you permission to talk this matter of a marriage over with my daughter, and you are assuming that the arrangements are as good as settled.”

  “Oh,” said Dan, with a sudden, sharp look at the older man. “Have you then laid your commands upon your daughter? Is that your way of answering me?”

  “No,” said the father. “I haven’t even talked it over with her. Blythe is fully able to settle her own affairs, I feel. I think she will tell you what she wants. You merely have my permission to address her. There is, however, one question I would like to ask you before you leave.”

  “Yes?” said the young man, alert at once.

  “I would like to know, just as a matter of personal interest, what you think of God? How well do you know Him?”

  “God!” exclaimed Dan, a kind of shiver of horror going over him. “What in heck has God got to do with anything?”

  “Well, when you have lived as long as I have lived, young man, you will find that God has to do with almost everything, more or less. You can’t get away from that. I was just interested to know what you thought of Him.”