Though None Go with Me (8 page)

She still did a lot of walking, because he was busier than ever too. But he seemed an agent of God when she needed one most. If she felt energetic, she walked home. But when the stress of her loneliness or schoolwork or work in general caught up with her, her ride was often waiting.

She always expressed her heartfelt thanks, and Will, to his credit, never made her feel obligated. Knowing he would never accept a tip, Elisabeth tried to recompense him by rounding up her rent payment. But her bill was always lessened by the same amount the next time. Finally she confronted him.

“Will, you're being too kind. You must allow me to compensate you for all the extra trouble.”

“It's no trouble, Elspeth,” he would say. “I'm happy to do it.”

“But I feel bad. I—”

“Listen to me,” he said. “When I say I'm happy to do it, I mean I would be unhappy if you didn't let me. If it helps you out, that makes me feel good.”

Impulsively, Elisabeth embraced him. What a dear, dear friend! He had become a man before his time. Will did not return the fleeting hug, but she wondered what Ben would think. She wouldn't want him embracing a friend of the opposite sex, even without romantic feelings.

After a month without word from Ben, Elisabeth wrote his mother. Mrs. Phillips responded, “We have heard nothing either, dear, and the local military office tells us this is normal. They say no news is good news. We sure want to meet you, however, having heard so many wonderful things about you from Benjamin. Is there any chance you might come up this way, or might we meet you somewhere?”

Elisabeth saw not one open day on her calendar for months and so kept her reply encouraging but nebulous.

By March, despite her determination, Elisabeth became nearly beside herself with worry. She wanted to know where Ben was and that he was all right. Surely someone could tell her. She fired off letters to every official she could think of, receiving kind and timely replies that either evaded the question or assured her she would get word in due time. “No news is good news,” she read over and over. Well, it wasn't good news to her.

Like many other men in town, Will's brothers-in-law worked at the Sheffield Car Company plant, assembling railroad cars. They largely ignored Elisabeth, and their wives barely spoke to her. It was as if they were jealous that their children were smitten by her. Will's sisters were several years older than Elisabeth, and after marrying “outside the faith,” as their mother said, they left the church as well. It was clear the couples resented having to raise their broods in their mother-in-law's boarding house, and all they talked about was getting their own places someday.

Elisabeth played with Will's nieces and nephews every chance she got, teaching them songs and telling them Bible stories. One of the brothers complained, but Elisabeth responded by offering to take the children to Sunday school every week. For whatever danger the parents saw in her filling the kids' heads with religion, the idea of Sunday mornings to themselves sold them on the idea.

The kids loved piling into the back of Will's truck, and Elisabeth saw yet another surprising side of him. He was wonderful with the children—patient, loving, kind. He took them to Snyder's to pick her up after work one Saturday and bought them all phosphates. One ordered one too many. When he leaned in the window at a stop sign to tell Will he felt sick, he proved it all over Will and the cab of the truck. Not only did Will not respond with revulsion or anger, but he also quickly cleaned up the boy and the truck, all the while comforting him and telling him it was all right.

By May, Elisabeth was exhausted from her schedule and from worry over Ben. She wrote the War Department in Washington, demanding “information on his well-being if not on his location. If you do not want a determined fiancée making a personal excursion to Europe to find her man, you'll respond posthaste. Most sincerely yours, a loyal and praying citizen, Elisabeth Grace LeRoy.”

Ten days later she received a telegram from the War Department: “MISS LE ROY: BE INFORMED PVT. PHILLIPS ASSIGNED EUROPE. SPECIFIC LOCATION CLASSIFIED. NO REPORTED ACTION OR CASUALTIES. HAS RECEIVED YOUR MAIL. TRIP ILL ADVISED.”

Elisabeth had coerced a response from the lumbering government. To both her bemusement and consternation, the telegram had arrived COD.

She wondered why he was receiving her mail and she was getting none of his. Had he written? Might he have lost interest? Come to his senses? Had a word from God? Dare she pray about the same? Not until she checked back with his parents.

She wrote them again, telling of her experience with the War Department. “That's a relief,” his mother responded. “You're very resourceful. We didn't know where to turn except to the Lord. We have received no mail from Ben either.”

It was Elisabeth's turn for relief. If he had changed his mind, he certainly would have told his parents, wouldn't he? But parents of the servicemen at church were getting letters, some even from overseas. What must Ben be involved in? She scoured the newspaper every day for clues.

Unable to sleep one Saturday night in late May, Elisabeth poured out her heart to God. “I had no idea what my commitment to you would bring,” she said. “I'm determined to obey you in every instance, but except for Ben, my life has been nothing but trouble from the moment I turned it over to you. I know life abundant doesn't mean happiness all the time and that you're trying to teach me something. But can't I know your will? Can't I have some peace? Please tell me I did the right thing when I pledged myself to Ben. I feel obligated to honor that. I love him and want to be his wife.”

She rolled onto her stomach and propped herself up by her elbows to look out the window. Elisabeth had communicated with God frequently enough and for enough years to have an inkling where she stood. She lay her cheek on the pillow, believing God had forgiven her getting ahead of him. Yet she felt no confirmation about marriage. That didn't mean she had been wrong. But she hated God's silence on the most important issue in her life.

She felt suddenly compelled to pray about Will. Was this God's answer to her request for confirmation about Ben? She thanked God for Will's friendship, for his character, for his work ethic, for his servant spirit. It was as if God were saying, “You think
you've
had it rough? He committed his life the same night you did, and look what
he's
been through. You lost your father. So did he. You lost your home; he shares his with family and strangers.”

Elisabeth was at a loss. She was not about to pray, “Should I marry Will?” She didn't have those kinds of feelings for him. She would go mad if God weren't clearer. “Should I marry Ben?” she blurted.

She didn't sense a clear yes or no. She simply felt she had gotten ahead of God by promising herself to Ben. But she had known that and already asked forgiveness for it. Now she just wanted God's blessing on her commitment. Apparently, it didn't work that way.

She had been wrong for having promised before praying about it, but was marrying Ben wrong? She could not conceive of that. If she was to marry Will rather than Ben, God would have to give her a love for him that transcended what she felt for Ben. Was that possible?

This would be easier if Ben was a cad or Will ignorant. Choosing between good and bad was easy. How did one choose between better and best? And how had it come to this? Since when was she deciding between Ben and Will? She had already made that decision.

Enough military men were getting Dear John letters because their women grew tired of waiting. That was not her problem. She had not even known of Will's interest in her until she had fallen in love with Ben. Yet months before Ben asked her to marry him, she had known of Will's intentions and even his conviction that it was of God.

Elisabeth put her feet on the floor and sat with her head in her hands. Was this the adventure of faith she had signed on for? Was this what it meant to make her life an experiment in obedience? What if God made it clear she had made the wrong choice and that she
was
to withdraw her acceptance of Ben's proposal? There was not a doubt in her mind that Will was eager to step back into the picture. Neither God nor Ben had given her the freedom to tell Will that she had accepted a marriage proposal. There had to be some reason for that.

If God led her away from Ben, how would she ever tell him? Would he understand if she said it was God's idea? And what would she do with her love for him, her passion, her longing to be his wife?

Elisabeth tried to sleep, hoping and praying that she was simply as young and confused as she felt and that somehow God would make it clear that she should marry Ben. Wherever he was.

CHAPTER NINE

E
lisabeth woke Sunday with the dread fear that something had happened to Ben. She could not talk to nor even look at Will. Was this why God had given her no peace about Ben? Not because he was an unsuitable partner, but rather because he was not going to come back? She could think of nothing else.

The children were excited about Sunday school. Their parents slept in, which put pressure on Mrs. Bishop, Will, and Elisabeth to corral the children, feed them, and get them ready. Halfway through breakfast, Mrs. Bishop had had enough. “I don't feel like going now myself,” she said. “I'd just as soon go back to bed.”

“Aw, Ma,” Will said. “You know you want to. Go get ready. I'll handle the kitchen.” She stared as if she didn't really want the obstacles removed. “Go on, now,” he said. “Wear that dress I got you.”

Will cleared the table and poured a pan of hot water in the sink. “Let me do that,” Elisabeth said, but he suggested if she could just keep track of the kids for ten minutes, he'd be right out.

“And you kids,” he said, making them all stop and look at him with expectant smiles. “Whoever's the quietest and sitting the straightest when I get out there gets a phosphate tomorrow after school.”

They squealed and lit out for the truck. Elisabeth followed, but she too was stopped by a word from Will. “You all right?”

Standing at the sink in a shirt and tie, a dishtowel tucked in his belt, he looked at her with such concern that she nearly wept. “I'm worried about Ben,” she said, as if it were an admission.

“Any news?”

“No.”

“Then assume the best. Anything I can do?”

She couldn't speak. She didn't want to turn away, but neither did she want to burst into tears in front of him. As if to spare her the embarrassment, he turned back to the dishes. Elisabeth needed to follow the children, but she felt riveted. Staring at Will, busy at the sink, it was as if she had seen this before. Or would see it again. She could not pull away.

Then it hit her. With an alarming chill she pictured herself growing old with him, working with him in the kitchen. In the yard. In the car. The view was stark and clear. This wasn't a vision; it was more an impression, some foreknowledge, an absolute assurance. She knew that if she merely said the word, told him she was available and would marry him, the deed would be done. They would have a family of their own.

When he turned toward her, she shook herself from her reverie and forced herself down the stairs. What had that been all about? Did she love Will? Could she? Should she learn to? It made no sense. Will Bishop?

The kids ran around the yard, but Elisabeth knew they would snap to as soon as Will came. She had to get her mind on something else before he came down. She sat in the cab of the truck, her Bible and Sunday school lesson on her lap. She tried to concentrate, to remember the points she wanted to make to her young girls that morning. It was no use. Here came the kids. They had seen or heard Will bounding down the stairs, and they leapt into the back of the truck, stiff and straight and still.

Will made a huge show of examining each of them like a drill sergeant, and they all fought with all their might to keep from grinning. Mrs. Bishop came down looking surprisingly sporty in the dress Will had bought.

“Everybody wins!” Will said, and the kids cheered. His mother slid into the cab, putting Elisabeth in the center next to Will. He excused himself each time he had to move the gearshift lever on the floor between them. Elisabeth had never felt more self-conscious. On the way home she would sit by the window, with his mother between them, if she had to climb over the top of the truck to do it.

Will walked his mother to her class before heading to his own, and the kids raced to their respective spots. Elisabeth taught fourth-grade girls in a tiny room off the fellowship hall in the basement. One of Will's nieces, Sue, with short brown hair and huge, dark eyes, was new enough to church and Sunday school that she alone would have made it worth Elisabeth's while. Sue stared at her, listening to every word, eager to find verses in the Bible Pastor Hill had given her.

During class, Elisabeth briefly forgot Ben and Will and her turmoil. In church she found herself directly in front of Will. She knew it was her imagination, because a man like Will had loftier things on his mind, but she felt as if his eyes were boring a hole in the back of her head. She couldn't concentrate. When the congregation stood for the closing hymn, she used the occasion to look sideways. From the corner of her eye she couldn't tell what he was looking at. Next week she would sit behind him. Or beside him. Anywhere but in front of him.

The hymn was “In the Cross of Christ,” which Elisabeth loved because it reminded her of the mother she never knew. Pastor Hill suggested they sing all four verses
a cappella,
and Elisabeth was struck to hear Will's clear voice behind her. In all their years growing up in that church, she could not recall having heard him sing.

His pure tenor voice captivated her, and his emotion moved her to where she could barely articulate the words herself:

In the cross of Christ I glory, towering o'er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story gathers round its head sublime.
When the woes of life o'ertake me, hopes deceive and fears annoy,
Never shall the cross forsake me; Lo! It glows with peace and joy.
When the sun of bliss is beaming light and love upon my way,
From the cross the radiance streaming adds more luster to the day.
Bane and blessing, pain, and pleasure, by the cross are sanctified;
Peace is there that knows no measure, joys that through all time abide.

Lurching toward her graduation from Three Rivers High School, set for Saturday, June 8, 1918, Elisabeth found it difficult to focus on her many duties. She maintained her schedule and her disciplines, but everything seemed futile. The only bright spot in her life had come in the middle of May when Mrs. Phillips responded to her graduation announcement and invitation to the ceremony with the surprise news that she and her husband planned to come. “What an appropriate occasion to meet our future daughter-in-law,” she wrote. “My husband and I shall handle all our own arrangements so you need not worry after us, and we look forward to it with great anticipation.”

Friday, May 31, Will picked her up from Snyder's after work and said, “I have good news.”

“That I could use,” she said wearily. “Tell me it's a letter from Ben.”

“It is.”

“Don't tease me, Will.”

“I wouldn't.”

“You're serious? Did you bring it?”

“I thought you'd want to read it by yourself.”

His blasted kindness and consideration! Of course he was right. It had been so long since she had heard from Ben, she believed she could jump out and run and beat Will home. Alone in her room minutes later, she tore open the envelope, crying before she could unfold the page. The letter was dated May 16, fifteen days before.

Dearest Elisabeth,

How could you have referred to me as your fiancé in a letter to no less than the War Department itself? Don't you know that puts me in a different category here—special treatment and all the rest—which I definitely do not want? The engagement was announced to my company, which has hazed me mercilessly. I thought we had agreed to say nothing to anyone. You sure chose the wrong target!

Part of me is thrilled that so many here know, but I suppose it's futile to expect the news won't sweep through our families and friends in the States. I feel such a fool, having given no token of my pledge and now having the world know I put you in the untenable position of promising yourself to a soldier overseas.

Make no mistake, I am more committed to you and our future than ever, and I want the ring bestowed and the ceremony accomplished within a week of my return, if you'll still have me. I wish I knew where your mind and heart were, because I have received no communication from you and can't know whether you have received mine. No one here has heard from home, so I take some comfort that I am not alone. I am anticipating a sack of mail when it finally comes. If nothing else, your gaffe with Washington tells me how you view me. Officially or not, you call me your fiancé.

Things are heating up here, and as you don't know where I'm writing from I can tell you that some resolution—at least as it relates to U.S. troops—should be forthcoming within a month.

Loving you and missing you,
your devoted Ben.

How she loved him! It hurt to be scolded, especially when she only had his best interest in mind. She folded the letter and kept it with her, peeking at it several times that evening. Will did not ask to see it, though he did ask if all was well.

“Better than well. Ben's fine!”

“I'm glad for you,” he said. “Any idea where he is?”

“None.”

“There was something in the paper today about the first American offensive of the war.”

“He predicted that! Let me see it.”

“There were casualties, Elspeth.”

“How many?”

“It doesn't say.”

He handed her the paper and she read of the May 28 action. General Pershing delivered reinforcements to the French on the Marne, while fifty miles to the northwest in Cantigny, American troops were successful against the veteran Eighteenth Army. The U.S. reported light casualties in both operations.

So it had begun. Elisabeth couldn't guess where Ben might be, but what were the odds he was in on the first two U.S. offensives in France? And if so, was he safe? The paper told of a massive buildup of both German troops and U.S.-supported Allied troops along the Marne. Elisabeth wished she hadn't read it. The letter had assuaged her fear, but now she would worry all the more.

“Mother kept a plate warm for you on the stove, Elspeth.”

“Thanks. What did you have?”

“I don't know. I'm eating late tonight.”

“Really?”

“Just going out.”

“Got a date?” Elisabeth asked, teasing.

She froze when he nodded. “Lucy from church.”

“Lucy?” Elisabeth said unnecessarily. A pretty sophomore who wore glasses. “Why, uh, why so late?”

“I didn't want you to have to walk home is all. She didn't mind. She understands I'm kinda watching out for you. We're just going to have the special over at Three Rivers House. Better get going.”

“Have a nice time.”

Elisabeth walked stiff-legged to the kitchen and found her meal, which she only picked at. What was wrong with her? She was engaged, soon to be a high school graduate, then to marry as soon as her fiancé returned from the war. She didn't love Will Bishop, had no claim whatever on him, and didn't deserve one if she'd wanted it. She couldn't be jealous of Lucy. Yet she was. Flat jealous and wallowing in it.

She trudged upstairs to her room, tried to pray, tried to read her Bible, tried to write a letter. Finally, she gave up on it all and collapsed into bed. It was not late enough for sleep, but she slept anyway, for lack of anything else that made her feel anything but terrible.

I'm a rotten, awful person,
she told herself.
I can't have what I want and I don't want what I have.

On the Friday afternoon before graduation, Will asked if she minded if Lucy rode with them the next day.

“Oh, Will,” she said, “that wouldn't be fair to Lucy. I'll find a way. If the Phillipses get into town early, I may go with them.”

“But what if they don't? Anyway, you don't want to invite yourself along, especially with your future in-laws. It'll be okay. Lucy understands.”

If Lucy were anything like Will, she probably would be bigger about the situation than Elisabeth would. It was too far to walk and too late to arrange for a ride with anyone else.

That night a light tap on her door awakened Elisabeth. “Don't open, Elspeth,” Will said. “I'm just slipping a message under the door. The Phillipses phoned you at Snyder's, and the delivery boy brought a note.”

Elisabeth flipped on the light and squinted against the brightness.
I hope they're still coming,
she thought.

The note read, “E. L., a Mrs. Phillips called and said she was sorry she missed you and to tell you they were still coming regardless. They'll see you after. A.W.S.”

Regardless,
she thought.
Regardless the weather? Regardless what?
She was glad she had not counted on them for a ride.

By noon the next day, as most of Three Rivers readied itself for the graduation ceremonies, word spread that the war had taken a dramatic turn in favor of the Allies, due in large part to U.S. efforts. A major German offensive had been thwarted and pushed back, and while it might take months to accomplish, the momentum had shifted and it seemed certain Germany would be defeated.

To Elisabeth the whole town seemed optimistic about the safe return of many young men, so graduation would be more festive than ever. The male graduates likely need not worry about their draft status, despite the Selective Service Act.

Elisabeth watched for signs of affection between Will and Lucy during the crowded ride. She saw nothing and scolded herself for caring. Worrying about Will Bishop's love life was far from where she ought to be by now in her spiritual life.

She won several class awards, including the plaque for the student most inspirational to classmates as an example of a dedicated scholar. She nearly burst with pride for Will, who looked terribly embarrassed to win both Most Improved Student and the Accounting Club award.

Elisabeth scanned the crowd for the Phillipses, wondering if she would recognize them by seeing Ben in their features. Many students had out-of-town guests and relatives, however, so she quickly gave up. His parents would know who she was because she had been announced several times even before being presented with her diploma.

After the students tossed their caps, signed each other's annuals, tearfully embraced, and posed for photographs, Elisabeth told Will she had a way home and that she would see him later. As he walked off with Lucy, she carrying some of his stuff but neither showing more than appropriate familiarity, Elisabeth decided meeting her future inlaws would cap a fairly happy day.