A Touch of Grace

by Lauraine Snelling

  He thanked the housemother and made his way back to his room, where his roommate, Bernie Efflinger, snored away. He’d assured Jonathan that the light on wouldn’t keep him awake, and it didn’t.

  He opened his Greek reader and propped it against the others in order to free his hands to hold the coffee cup and take notes. Had he worked this hard in prep school, he’d have graduated with honors. But that hadn’t been important to him at the time.

  When he finally turned out the light, he barely had time to pray for Grace before sleep hit him. This still caught him by surprise. Bernie grunted in his sleep, and the idea drifted into his drowse that maybe he should be praying for him too.

  The wind had kicked up a chop when he joined his team for the morning workout.

  “Was beginning to wonder if you were going to make it,” the cox-swain commented as they took their places.

  “Sorry. I think the alarm woke half the floor before I heard it.” He settled into his number three seat, putting his feet in the stretchers and shivering in the mist rising from the canal. The sun had yet to show its face through the fog.

  “Okay, men. Let’s get warmed up. The Saturday race will be here before we know it, and we want to win.”

  They pushed away from the dock, and the coxswain picked up the beat.

  An hour later and dripping wet from both sweat and the chop, they eased back to the dock and staggered out.

  “That was brutal,” one of the team members groaned. He leaned over, hands on his knees, to catch his breath.

  Jonathan wrapped one leg in front of the other and leaned down to clasp his hands behind his knees to get the optimum stretch in his hamstrings.

  “You men need to spend some time in the weight room to build those shoulders. Running will increase your wind and your leg strength. You can’t get by with just practice in the scull. And we need to pick up the run distance.”

  Even though he knew he was stronger than most of the others, Jonathan listened with a questioning heart. Where would he find the extra time? Right now the only thing to cut back on was sleep, of which he was not getting an excess. So what could he speed up? Read faster, write faster, study faster? Whom could he ask for advice?

  There was only one thing he knew for certain he could cut out— his time with the gardener. Deciding he would not walk but run to everything, he took off for his room, hearing the catcalls of his teammates behind him. It was a good thing he had no desire for popularity. This would most likely kill any chance of that.

  That night he wrote to his parents to give them the bad news.

  Dear Mother and Father,

  I am sorry to say that I will not be coming home for the Thanksgiving weekend. I know you are planning a dinner and dancing event, but I just don’t have the time to spend traveling. If I want to continue to row and keep my grades up, I need every minute I can beg, borrow, or steal to stay at the top of my class. There are several fellows who have made it their mission to unseat me, since the top spots gain extra privileges. Plus some are business majors, who see this as adversarial practice.

  I know you will all have a marvelous time and please have an extra serving of pumpkin pie in my stead.

  Your ambitious son,

  JDG

  This letter would probably bring his mother down on the next train.

  Sometimes he wondered if he just wasn’t as smart as his brother Thomas, who’d not seemed to have any trouble remaining at the top of his class, turning out for sports, and even having time to attend all the balls and social functions. He tapped the edge of the envelope against the side of his finger. How had Thomas done it all? Maybe it was Harvard that was different and he should’ve gone there after all.

  Jonathan scrubbed his fingers through his hair, realizing that he needed a haircut too. The curls were long enough to tie in a bow. The only way to tame them was to keep his hair short. He stared at the face in the mirror. These are only petty annoyances, he informed the dark eyes that stared back at him. The circles underneath them made him look like he was ill.

  He picked up his Greek textbook and tried to understand the verb forms. Hours later he woke, shivering, with his cheek flat on his book on the desk. Bleary-eyed, he blinked to be able to see the clock—just after three in the morning. He stared at the page number in his text-book. Not that far beyond where he’d started.

  He rubbed his temples to try to get his brain functioning. Go down for another cup of coffee? Surely the coffee would be cold by now. Instead, he turned off the gaslamp and slid between the bed sheets with all his clothes on, grateful for the quilt, since the air felt more like winter than fall. Would they still be practicing in the scull when ice rimed the water? At least he wouldn’t have to get up quite so early to dress before he headed for the canal in the morning.

  “You look like you slept in your clothes,” one of the team members commented the next morning.

  “Only because I did.” Jonathan pulled his wool stocking cap down over his ears. Even running to practice with the cold air stabbing his lungs hadn’t sufficiently awakened him. He’d never be able to thank Bernie enough for pulling him out of bed.

  “Hit the oars, men. You’ll freeze standing around.” The coxswain slapped Jonathan on the shoulder. “Ready for the big meet?”

  “As I’ll ever be.” Saturday was only two days away, and he had an exam on Friday afternoon—the test he was studying for last night when he fell asleep on the book. He should be back at the frat house studying right now. He locked his feet into the stretchers and grabbed his oar. “Let’s get this over with.”

  He knew when he walked out of the classroom the next afternoon that, in spite of his best efforts, he’d not completed all the questions. No matter how long he’d studied the night before, even missing another class to study for this one. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, as the old saying went. And neither Peter nor Paul was appeased.

  A letter from his mother waited for him on his desk when he returned to his room. He stared at the handwriting. Why couldn’t it have been from Grace? Right now he really needed something to cheer him up, and he knew his mother wasn’t the one to do that.

  “Hard day?” Bernie dropped his books on his desk. “It is bitter cold out there. Surely they won’t have the race tomorrow in this kind of weather.”

  “We could pray the canal freezes over, but barring that, I think it will go on.”

  “You’ll catch your death out there.”

  “I sure hope not.”

  “Just don’t go.”

  “I can’t do that!” Jonathan shook his head, giving Bernie a frown. “When you join the team, you agree to practices and meets. Part of the bargain.”

  “Frostbite won’t help your grades any. And that’s precluding pneumonia.” He headed for the door. “I’ll bring you a cup of coffee too. You want anything stronger in it?”

  “No, just cream and sugar. I need those extras now.” He stared at the letter he’d propped against the lamp. He would read that tomorrow or maybe next week. He didn’t want the lecture about family responsibilities and Thanksgiving, which he was sure was the theme.

  They waited an hour for the other school to show up the next morning. At least the walls of the boathouse broke the wind, but the cold penetrated clear to the bones before their coach announced the race was off and they should all go have a warm bath and drink a hot toddy to quicken the warming process.

  He woke up Sunday morning with his nose running and chest tight with a hacking cough.

  “I’m calling Mrs. Maguire. Perhaps she has some remedy to keep you from getting sicker.” Bernie turned from the open door. “You stay in bed!”

  That was an order Jonathan was more than happy to obey. As if he had any choice.

  “I knew you shouldn’t have gone out to the canal yesterday.” Mrs. Maguire laid the back of her hand against his forehead. “Hot. I think we better get you to the infirmary immediately.”

  “No. I can sleep better here.” Just those few words sent hi
m into a hacking frenzy.

  “Then a mustard plaster it is for you, and I’ll mix up some honey and whiskey to cut the phlegm in your throat. I told you you can’t go on like this, no sleep, and drinking coffee to keep awake. Come on, Mr. Efflinger, we have a mission to perform. I’ll set a chicken to stewing. Nothing works as good as chicken soup.”

  Jonathan propped some more pillows behind his head so he was almost sitting up. Breathing was easier that way. He couldn’t remember when he had felt so miserable. He was never sick.

  Coughing woke him later, just as Mrs. Maguire returned to the room.

  With the mustard plaster burning his chest and the honey and whiskey in hot water warming his insides, he fell asleep again. During the night he thought he heard Mrs. Maguire say she would call his father, but perhaps he’d been dreaming it.

  His father walked into the room the next day to find him half sitting up, being fed chicken soup by the housemother. “Why are you not in the infirmary?”

  “I’m getting better care here.” Jonathan motioned to his nurse.

  “Have you had a doctor check him?”

  “Yes. He came during the night and said I was doing all that he could do. He left laudanum to help control the cough, but Mr. Gould is doing better today without that.” She held out another spoonful of soup. “This will help him get stronger.”

  Mr. Gould pulled up a chair by the bedside. “So what brought this on?”

  “We had a crew race on Saturday and waited in the cold.”

  “And he has been burning the candle at both ends.” Mrs. Maguire looked to the elder Gould. “If you want my opinion, that is.”

  Jonathan fought to keep his eyes open and think of a suitable answer for his father, but the effort was too much, and he drifted back to sleep. He kept seeing Grace standing on the shore, and he tried and tried to row over to her. But the wind pushed him back, and the icy cold doubled him over. He tried to call out to her when she began to disappear and remembered she couldn’t hear him. Then how could he tell her? He shook his arm in frustration and woke as he felt a soft hand catch it.

  “How long have I been sleeping?”

  “Four days.” Mrs. Maguire held out a spoonful of chicken soup. “Weren’t sure you were going to make it for a while there.”

  “I dreamed Grace was here, then?”

  “If Grace is Miss Knutson, you were talking with her a couple of times.”

  He swallowed another spoonful. “Is it day or night?”

  “Night.”

  He let himself float for a bit. “Was my father here, or did I dream that too?”

  “He’s sleeping in the guest room. Eat more of this. You need to rebuild your strength.”

  Jonathan studied the woman who wielded the soup spoon. Lamp-light set a halo around her silvering hair, loosely knotted in a bun on her head. “He stayed here?”

  “And the doctor’s been here several times. He said we were doing all he could do, and it’s a good thing you are such a strong young man or we’d be digging a hole for you rather than making chicken soup.”

  “Hmm. Thank you.”

  He must have slept, but he wasn’t sure, for there she was again, spoon in hand. “Sorry, I must have drifted off.”

  “I guess so. Morning came an hour ago.” She turned at a sound from the doorway. “Good morning, Mr. Gould. This time you get to see the color of his eyes.”

  “Good. I’ll take over, then.”

  Jonathan watched his father settle into the chair Mrs. Maguire vacated. With his vest hanging loose and the collar of his shirt unbuttoned with no tie, he only faintly resembled the man Jonathan had wanted to please all his life—and never quite measured up. His father also needed a shave. Opening his mouth obediently when the spoon hovered near, he could feel a burning behind his eyes. He could never remember his mother caring for him like this, let alone his father. Their governess had been in charge of the nursery, with a nurse on call when needed. The twins had required far more doctoring than he.

  “Why are you doing this?” The words slipped past his reserve.

  His father stared straight into his soul. “Because I love you, and I’ve not taken a lot of time to show it before. The thought of you dying before I grew wise enough to say this was more than I could bear. Mrs. Maguire told me that if I wanted you to live, I’d better get down on my knees and make sure the good Lord knew that I wanted to make amends.”

  Jonathan tried blinking, but he had no reserve strength to order the tears back. When he raised his hand to wipe them away, it shook so bad, he let it fall back to the bedclothes. Instead, his father wiped his son’s tears with the edge of the sheet and, after setting the bowl and spoon on the tray on the bedside table, took Jonathan’s hands in his own. “I have watched your dedication to live up to our agreement, and I want you to know that killing yourself to do so is not necessary.”

  Jonathan smiled when he realized his father was making a joke. “I didn’t plan this.”

  “I know. But I think we need to rewrite our agreement. When you are well, we will discuss it. I think you should come home to recuperate.”

  “But then I will have failed this semester. Surely I’ll be able to return to class in a couple of days.” He tried to sit up but collapsed back against the pillows.

  “I talked with your professors. You will have until classes resume in January to make up for your lost time. You can take your finals when you return.”

  “What did you do? Buy them off with a building?”

  The burst of laughter from his father made him smile too. He took the next spoonfuls of soup with good grace.

  “You really do love Miss Knutson, don’t you?”

  The question caught him by surprise. Had his father doubted it? Obviously so. But when he thought to the flitting from flower to flower that had been his practice for his prep-school years, which his mother had thought delightful, perhaps his father had not been of like mind. “I told you I did and do.”

  “You kept calling for her, as if she were lost and you couldn’t find her.”

  What else had he said? How frustrating that he could remember none of it.

  “I called Mrs. Callahan to tell Grace and ask her to pray for you also.”

  The words dropped like petals on a lazy stream.

  “You did?” He had never heard his father talk like this of praying before. Granted, they went to church occasionally but only as a social responsibility. Their family name under a plaque on one of the stained-glass windows was as close to community as they came.

  “I sent a telegram to the Bjorklunds, asking them to pray too.”

  That did it. Jonathan’s jaw sprung the lock and hung to his chest.

  “Mrs. Maguire reminded me that God promised that when two or three agree on something, He will honor those prayers.”

  “I see.” He didn’t really, but that seemed a good thing to say. His mind was having a hard time accepting all this information. “So does Grace know I’m still alive?”

  “Oh yes. I called to have a message delivered there yesterday when we knew you were on the mend. Mrs. Bjorklund telegraphed a receipt for one of her homemade medicines, and after we found the ingredients and poured that into you, the crisis passed. I will never be able to thank her enough.”

  Jonathan knew there was a laugh in there somewhere, but he couldn’t find it before he slipped into sleep again.

  When he awoke a few hours later, a note sat propped against the lamp. This time as he reached for it, his hand held steady. He slit the envelope with a fingernail grown long and read the letter.

  My dear Jonathan,

  I’ve been called back to the city—marvelous machines these telephones—but I want you to have some more to think about. I believe you should come home on the train as soon as you are able to travel. We will send someone to assist you. Mrs. Maguire will supervise your care there. She has been a stalwart friend. I release you from your agreement not to mention your feelings to Miss Knutson. I know a l
etter from you as soon as you can write one would ease her concerns. I sent a message to her again and telegraphed the Bjorklunds, thanking them for their prayers. I guess Mrs. Bjorklund threatened to come and nurse you herself if you didn’t improve. I thank our God for the friends He has given us. We will bring in a tutor to help you make up the time if that would be a good idea. Getting well and strong again is your first priority.

  I agree with you. Grand Forks sounds like the best school for what you want to do.

  Your loving father,

  DJG

  If he hadn’t been lying down, Jonathan knew he would have collapsed.

  New York

  December

  Dear Jonathan,

  Please get well. Our whole school is praying for you. I’ve enclosed a note one of my sweet little girls wrote for you. I was so shocked when your father called in the message and so grateful he informed me of what was happening. As Tante Ingeborg has always said, Mr. Gould is a fine man and faithful friend. I believe you take after your father, even though I’m not sure you see that in yourself.

  Grace brushed a wisp of hair out of her eyes. Lord, please bring healing had been her waking prayer since the telephone call that nearly scared her out of her wits. Mrs. Callahan had knocked at her door that evening just as she was thinking of getting dressed for bed.

  “I have a message for you from Mr. Gould,” she’d said. “His son Jonathan is terribly ill, and he wanted you to know so you could pray. I told him we would all be praying. I hope that is all right.”

  “Did he say what was wrong?”

  “Pneumonia.”

  “Oh! Oh, please dear God, not Jonathan.” Her mind immediately flew back to the times that Ingeborg and later Elizabeth had nursed people in Blessing, some to live and some not.

  “Has he passed the crisis point yet?”

  “No, I don’t think so. He didn’t say. He sounded very worried.”