GI Brides

by Grace Livingston Hill

There was quiet in the room for a little while as the women thought over and sifted out the ideas that had been brought forth. Very few of those women in that room had stopped to think that this war wasn’t just a game, just another function in which they could be delightfully active. Somehow life seemed to be taking on a more serious attitude, and they were not sure it was going to be quite so interesting.

  Then at last with a little glad escape of a sigh Mrs. Frazee said, “Well, anyhow, it’s too late to give up this party, isn’t it? The invitations are all sent and the tickets are paid for. It wouldn’t be honest not to have the party now, would it?”

  Then they all laughed. Mrs. Frazee was so delightfully childlike, so full of the little frilly things of life, and so empty where anything real was concerned. She couldn’t even baste up a baby’s nightie without getting the shoulders all hindside-before. And today, no matter how many of them had to be ripped out and done over again, she promptly put the next day’s shoulders all at loggerheads, and she finally cast them down in despair, saying:

  “Well, I don’t see what earthly difference it makes anyhow. Why won’t they be all right when you get the sleeves sewed in?” And then she dropped down on her chair and burst into childish tears. So they finally decided that Mrs. Frazee would be invaluable pulling out bastings. And strangely, she was pleased. Why, pulling out bastings was something she could really understand, and her heart thrilled as she worked away at it, feeling that with every basting that came out she was pulling down a whole battalion of enemy soldiers.

  So Mrs. Frazee worked happily away at her bastings, jubilant over the fact that at least this party had to go on, this party on which she had spent so much time and thought, and for which she had developed so many original ideas. She smiled to herself to think that what she used for a conscience was released from obligation to these women, at least, and she could go on and enjoy herself and her plans.

  But the other women sat thinking, planning what the world should be when the war was over and Utopia perhaps would arrive, which was a development of their part-pagan religion they had developed from within, communing with self and their own desires. It was so much easier for them to explain life and religion in terms of their own wishes than to try and understand a book called the Bible. They felt, as they put away their work and got ready to go back to their world again, that they had been thinking some great thoughts, and that it was practically up to them as women to make the postwar world what it should be.

  That afternoon Blythe, with her big bundle of babies’ nighties by her side and her gold thimble on her flying fingers, sat in her mother’s room, not far from the big chair where the invalid rested, and made buttonholes, with a lovely smile on her lips and a happy light in her eyes. She was so glad to have her mother getting well, and to be able to do some real work again. The days of anxiety had been long and trying, and it was good to have sunshine in the home and mother beginning to look as she used to look when Blythe was a little girl. Mother with that rested look on her face again, and no longer a strained, anxious expression.

  Her mother watched her silently for a while, smiling to think how lovely her girl was, and then thinking about her thoughts over the last few weeks before she was taken sick. At last she spoke:

  “It’s so dear to see you sitting there, Blythe, working on those little garments.”

  Blythe gave a happy smile.

  “Oh, but Mother, it is I who should be saying that. It is so nice to see you sitting there so rested and happy-looking and really getting well after your long illness. It was so dreadful when you lay so still and didn’t know us at all. But don’t let’s think about that. I’m just glad, glad, you are really better, and will be well pretty soon. The doctor says it won’t be long now. He told Daddy so this morning. I heard him.”

  “That’s nice,” said the mother, “but somehow I’m not in a hurry. I’m quite content to rest here and not to have to hurry at present.”

  “I only blame myself that I didn’t see how worn out you were getting,” said the daughter. “You know, I thought you liked all that planning and worry and hustling from one thing to another.”

  “Why, I guess I did,” said Mrs. Bonniwell reminiscently, “but I’m glad I don’t have to do it now. I just like to lie and watch you sew those cute little nighties.”

  The mother was still for a few minutes and then she spoke again:

  “Blythe, what about that wedding? Did Dan Seavers get married? I don’t seem to have heard anything about it. Did it finally come off?”

  Blythe laughed.

  “Don’t ask me,” she said amusedly. “I wasn’t there. I was getting hot water bags, and hunting more blankets and trying to get you warm. You know, Mother, if I hadn’t been so frightened about you that I couldn’t think straight, I believe I would have been grateful to you for creating a really good reason that nobody could question why I didn’t have to go to that wedding. But of course at the time, I was too troubled to even think about the wedding.”

  “So it did come off! Well, to think of that! And you didn’t feel badly about it, dear, having your old friend go off with another girl?”

  “Feel badly, Mother! What do you mean? Did you ever think I wanted to marry Dan? Why Mother, I thought I told you—”

  “Oh, yes, I know you did. But I was afraid you might find out afterward that you had made a mistake.”

  “No,” said Blythe definitely, “I did not find I had made a mistake. I did not ever want to marry Dan. He was a playmate in childhood, that was all. He never meant a thing to me. And I strongly suspect he has just the right kind of a wife to suit his plans and ambitions. She’ll climb as far up the social ladder as he wants her to, and she’ll egg him on to get in everywhere and get ahead. And I, why Mother, you don’t know how glad I am that he and his wife are married and gone away from here. It seems somehow as if the atmosphere was clearer for right living.”

  The mother’s face was thoughtful as she watched her daughter and listened to her decided pronouncement. After a moment Blythe went on.

  “But you know, Mother, you ought to have understood all that after I told you about Charlie. You couldn’t think that I could ever want to marry anyone else when I loved Charlie, and since he loved me. Didn’t you understand that, Mother?”

  The mother hesitated before she answered.

  “Well, dear, I wasn’t sure about that. I thought it might be only a passing fancy, and that it would fade away.”

  “Oh no, Mother! It can never fade away. It is the real thing, Mother. Love, the kind you and Daddy have for each other. Could you have married anyone else, Mother?”

  “Oh no, of course not, dear. But he was—well, I’d known him a long time, and I love him a great deal.”

  “Yes, Mother, that’s the way I feel. Of course, we haven’t had the fun together we might have had, because Charlie was too busy, and too humble, but perhaps we’ve loved all the better for that.”

  The mother was still again, and then she said slowly, half pitifully: “But, my darling, this lover of yours was going out to war with the avowed expectation of dying, and I couldn’t bear to think of my bright, lovely daughter starting out her life in the shadow of death. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand how I felt, dear?”

  “Yes,” said Blythe, trying to speak gently. “I see how you looked at it, from an earthly point of view, but you didn’t understand how great our love was, how great it is, I mean. Our love is a thing of our spirits, not entirely of our bodies and souls. Of course, body and soul count some in any loving, but so many loves don’t have anything to do with the spirit. Ours is deeply of the spirit, Mother, I love Charlie even more today than I did the day he went away, and I’m just as glad that he came to tell me of his love as I was then. Even a great deal gladder.”

  “But—even if he never comes back?”

  “Yes, Mother, even if he never comes back—to this earth.”

  “My dear! That’s very beautiful! I dreaded sorrow for you, but I’m
glad that you have found joy in these very hard times. I had hoped you might have forgotten him, but now, well perhaps I understand.”

  Blythe suddenly laid down her sewing and went and knelt beside her mother’s chair; then stooping, kissed her forehead and her lips.

  “Thank you, Mother dear. That’s the sweetest thing you could have said to me. Now I can be really happy in loving Charlie.”

  For some time the girl knelt there by her mother with their hands tenderly clasped. At last the mother said, “You dear, dear child!” Then after a moment, “And have you heard nothing more from—Charlie?” She hesitated over the unaccustomed name, yet spoke it as if giving her sanction to the relationship, and that brought great joy to Blythe’s heart.

  “Yes Mother, I’ve had a few more letters. Would you like to see them? Dad has read some of them.”

  “Yes,” said the mother interestedly. ‘Yes, I would like to see them, that is, if you don’t mind, dear. If you think Charlie wouldn’t mind.”

  “No, he wouldn’t mind, I’m sure, and I’m glad to have you know him. I want you to know him as well as I do. I’ll get them.”

  She hurried away to her room and brought the few letters that had come before the great silence enveloped him, and together the mother and daughter read them. And when the reading was over and Blythe had told about the different ones, how and when they came, the mother handed them back.

  “I’m glad you let me see them, dear. I do not wonder now how you love him. He must be a remarkable young man. I surely feel that God has greatly blessed you to give you a love like that, even if it was but for a little while. Some women never have such great love. I am glad my girl knows what love is.”

  After Blythe had put the letters away and come back to take up her sewing again, they spoke about the different letters.

  “But I don’t understand about that little message that came wrapped in cellophane. Who did you say sent it?”

  “Mrs. Blake’s youngest son, Mother. He used to admire and love Charlie when he was just a kid and follow him around when Charlie played football in the big college games, and when it happened that they met at a camp before Charlie went over, and were together for two or three days going to those meetings, Charlie knew that Walter was hoping to get home on furlough for a few days before he went overseas, and he asked Walter Blake to bring this to me, his last good-bye. Wasn’t that dear? But Walter didn’t get his furlough after all, and was sent overseas unexpectedly soon, so after he got over there he sent the message to his mother and asked her to give it to me.”

  “His mother? Blake? Walter Blake did you say? Do you mean it is the son of that sweet little Mrs. Blake who comes in to rub my back for me sometimes when I am very tired? Why how dear of her! I shall like her all the better, now that I know this. I hope she comes soon again. I like the feeling of her strong, warm hands. They are such little, gentle hands, yet they seem to have a power behind them. She was from your Red Cross class, wasn’t she? Is that how you got acquainted?”

  “Yes, Mother. I felt she was the most interesting person in the whole class. I felt she was a real friend.”

  “She is,” agreed Mrs. Bonniwell. “I like her very much. My dear, I wonder if this war isn’t going to do a lot of things to the world, like getting people to know other people of like tastes and beliefs and making them love one another, where formerly these same people were separated by social lines and things like education and money? Things good in themselves, perhaps, if taken in the right proportion, but deadly when they are exalted beyond their place. When I get well, Blythe, I want to try and straighten out some of these differences between me and my neighbors, both rich and poor. And I would like to begin by getting very well acquainted with Mrs. Blake.”

  “Oh Mother! You’re making me so happy!” said Blythe.

  “What’s all this?” asked Mr. Bonniwell, suddenly appearing in the doorway. “Let me in on it, won’t you? ‘Mrs. Blake’ I heard you say. Is that the mother of the Walter-lad I know about, Blythe?”

  “The same, Daddy,” said happy Blythe, pushing forward her father’s chair and running to get his slippers. “Come sit down, Daddy, and let me tell you what a wonderful mother I have, and what a sweet wife she’s been all these years.”

  And so amid laughter, and sometimes a bright tear, they told the father all their talk, and the three of them were happy together.

  “And now,” said Mr. Bonniwell, “wouldn’t it be nice, Mother, if Charlie should walk in someday?”

  “Indeed it would!” said the mother in a fervent sincere tone. “Someday very soon.”

  “Oh Daddy! Mother!” said Blythe, and suddenly sat down on a low stool between her father and her mother, and broke into happy tears. Then lifting a rainbow smile she said, “That’s the sweetest, dearest thing you could have said.”

  Chapter 22

  The men were very tenderly lifting Charlie, though most of them believed he was already beyond help. But there was something about Walter’s almost reverent handling of him, the way he looked at him, that caused them to walk cautiously. And when they learned who he was, that he was the guy who had given his life to make sure they would have the right information about the enemy; when they knew he had been living for weeks, hustling from one treetop to another and back down to his marvelous contrivance underground; that he had brought the right intelligence and made possible the several victories, one after another, through which they had been working; the guy that hadn’t stopped for sleep, nor had much to eat, and had just gone on making it possible for them to win as they had done, there was no man there but would have done much for Charlie. They knew there were heroes among them, they had seen some of them, dying for the cause for which they were fighting, but this one in endurance and terrible persistence of self-sacrifice had outdone them all. His name, they knew, would go down in history as a great one. He had all but accomplished the impossible.

  They came solemnly and brought Charlie to their captain, and he gave one look.

  “Is he still living?”

  One nodded.

  Then the doctor:

  “This man might have a chance if we could get him to the hospital, but here, there isn’t a chance.”

  “Would he live to get there?”

  “I doubt it. He might.”

  The captain’s glance rested on Walter, and his eyes kindled.

  “Get him there!” said the captain quickly. “Where’s Graham?”

  “Took his truck down to the base with a load of wounded men.”

  “I’ll get him there, Captain, if I have to carry him myself.” said Walter, looking at the captain eagerly, determinedly.

  A tender smile played over the captain’s face.

  “You couldn’t, son.”

  “Yes sir, I could, if there wasn’t any other way. He’s got to be saved! There’s a girl, Captain, and she cares.”

  “I understand,” said the captain. “We all care. He must be saved, but it will be easier for him another way. Call Michelli. You couldn’t stand carrying anyone that far.”

  “I could—” said Walter with deep earnestness.

  “Do you know, Captain,” spoke up one of the guards who had been with them when Walter brought the wounded man to the top of the ridge, “I believe he could. If it hadn’t been for Walt, he wouldn’t be here now. He carried him all the way up the ridge on his shoulder.”

  “Yes,” nodded the others. “He was swell. Just as careful!”

  The captain’s eyes glowed warmly.

  “He would,” he said in a soft voice. And then as Michelli came up and saluted, he turned and gave quick orders then turned back to Walter.

  “You go with him,” he said. “Stay by him as long as he needs you. And Michelli, see that the doctor looks Blake over, too. He has blood on his sleeve. Has he been hurt?”

  “Just a sniper’s bullet grazed me. It’s nothing,” said Walter.

  “Have it attended to at once. We can’t take chances with our best men!”
The captain’s voice was warm as he said it. “Now, go!”

  The little interlude in the day’s battle was over, the brief time when the captain had time to show his own human heart. The men talked out of his presence thoughtfully, saluting the man as well as the officer. A moment more and Charlie was on his way to any hope there might be for recovery, his head and shoulders resting in Walter’s arms. Walter felt that the privilege of a lifetime was his now, and tenderly he performed any little service that was to be done. His heart was swelling with thankfulness that the captain had let him go.

  Oh, God, he kept praying in his heart, it’s up to You now. Please remember Your promises! And then he looked down at the white face and the closed eyes of Charlie, his hero. It certainly looked hopeless, but there was God. God could do anything.

  The days that followed were solemn days. The fighting was still going on in the distance. The enemy had returned with reinforcements and renewed the battle, and wounded men were being brought in constantly. They gave an account of what had happened. They said the man who had taken Charlie’s place was not as good, not as thorough, did not always get his information across in time to save the situation. They spoke in high terms of Charlie’s exceptional work in the intelligence line, told what the captain had said about him. But Charlie was still lying unconscious in the curtained alcove that was as near to privacy as the primitive hospital afforded, and did not hear, nor care. Charlie was still hovering on the border, and there was sharp doubt as to whether he would not yet slip away from them. The wound had been a deep one, and complicated, and the hospital supplies were scant. There were so many things against his recovery. It was pitiful.

  Walter listened to all the veiled talk about it and sharply understood. It meant so much to him that Charlie should get well. It would mean so much to the girl—that is, it ought to. Oh, was she good enough for him? Charlie was so wonderful!

  Although Walter’s own less serious wound proved an unpleasant experience, he was not interested in himself. He desired to make little of his part in this affair. Yet the doctor persisted in dressing the wound carefully and asking questions.