Not My Will and The Light in My Window (2 page)

“Mike would say she drew red herrings across the trail,” she whispered. “She’s been cheating all these years, and the only way I’ll
ever
get anything like other girls is to do some cheating myself! It won’t do any good to coax. She won’t change her mind. If she’d sell the house in town and move out here just to get rid of Jackie, she’d take me to Europe to keep me away from Dale! I’ll just
have
to cheat too.”

This sudden determination made her cheeks flush in the dark. But, although she knew it was wrong, she did not consider giving up. Lying in bed she made her plan and finally fell asleep with tears on her cheeks.

Several days passed, and the party was not mentioned. Then one morning at the breakfast table, Eleanor asked casually, “Auntie, may I stay all night tonight at Rose Martello’s? She needs help with her English. Her folks don’t speak English, and it’s hard for her.”

“Who is Rose Martello, dear?” the careful Aunt Ruth questioned.

“Don’t you remember? She’s the tiny girl with black curls who played the piano so beautifully when the girls were here yesterday.”

“Oh, yes, I remember. But is she the kind of girl I would want you to associate with intimately? And does her mother want you? Rose seems all right, but I don’t like your going there when I’ve never met her mother.”

“She
is
a lovely girl, Auntie,” Eleanor hurried on. “Mrs. Martello is nice too. We’ve been there twice after school. But they are Italians, you know, and her mother doesn’t talk much English. She is bashful because of that, so even if you did call on her she would probably not want to see you. When Americans come there she stays in the kitchen and makes Rose talk to them. But she has been so nice to us girls, and I’d really like to help Rose.”

And so Aunt Ruth consented, not knowing that Eleanor had selected Rose of all her friends as the most likely partner in deceit and had offered her a dollar for each night she might spend at the Martellos’. Good Mrs. Martello, who made friends of every casual acquaintance, would hardly have recognized herself in the descriptions Aunt Ruth received—descriptions of herself that kept that lady from calling on her—and would have been shocked to know of the money that Rose was spending on ice cream and candy.

And since Aunt Ruth, always proper, insisted on Eleanor’s returning Rose’s hospitality, this bargain was very profitable for Rose in all respects. Her marks at school, too, rose steadily, for Eleanor—to mollify her conscience—insisted that Rose really study on nights when she was paying dollars of self-denial out of her allowance for the privilege of attending this or that party with a boy from school.

At another time Aunt Ruth might not have been deceived by this clumsy subterfuge, but she was relieved to
have the subject of Dale dropped so readily and was glad to have Eleanor transfer her interest to a girlfriend-even a foreign girl. She would hardly have believed it if she had been told that Eleanor’s head was not bent over a book in the Martellos’ parlor but was tossing gaily at Dale’s quips at a party or basketball game.

Eleanor tired of Dale, of course, but then there were Gordon and John and Allan and others in succession. She was pretty, and she was popular—even despite a very strict code of behavior which she had imposed on herself to help salve her conscience. “When I’m out with the boys I’ll act as if Aunt Ruth were along,” she told herself, and with characteristic determination, she did it. And so the boys respected her and thought of her not only as a lot of fun but as the right kind of girl too.

All through high school Eleanor deceived and disobeyed, even though she loved Aunt Ruth and they had wonderful times together.

“Aunt Ruth is grand,” Eleanor commented to one of her girlfriends, “but on this one subject she is just plain
crazy.
The easiest way to get along with her is not to tell her. Then her feelings aren’t hurt, and we don’t have any trouble.”

Years later Eleanor was to look back to these high school episodes with heartsick regret, realizing that it was the foundation for the heartache and tragedy of later years. It might have led to disastrous results at the time, had it not been that in her senior year she found a new interest and discovered a new world—the world that lives and moves outside and beyond the sight of ordinary human life, the marvelous world seen through the lens of a microscope.

The new science teacher at the high school had a captivating personality. He loved his work and with fascinating skill opened to Eleanor’s view marvelous works of nature. He recognized in her a real student and was delighted to give extra time and effort to her. Professor Thorne showed her how the wonders seen through the microscope could be caught and held by the camera, and from that time on, Rose and the boyfriends were forgotten. Aunt Ruth was delighted with this hobby and offered to Eleanor added inducements of money and equipment. One whole room in the attic was equipped for photography, and between this and the wonderful laboratory at school, Eleanor’s days and evenings were divided. She and Aunt Ruth went on trips to secure specimens, and it was not long before Aunt Ruth was as enthusiastic over her new world of science as was Eleanor herself.

One day Eleanor confided her hopes for the future. “I am going to be a scientist, Auntie—a really good one, of course. I get sick of folks talking as if the boys would all have careers and the girls would only get married. I’ll show them! I’m better now at this than any of the boys, and I’m going to be the best there is. No husband or babies for me!”

Ruth Edwards’s bitter heart was gladdened by that remark. She determined to send Eleanor to the best colleges and universities in America. Then they would go abroad. There would be no limit to the opportunities Eleanor would be given to encourage her in the work she had chosen to do. At long last Ruth had real use for her accumulated wealth and was glad it had not been dissipated by extravagance. Eleanor—educated, talented,
brilliant—would show the world the superiority of the intellect of woman over that of mere man. “No husband or babies for me!” Ruth still heard the words. If Eleanor had chosen science as her first and only love, then she should have every opportunity to worship at its shrine!

So she proposed. But God, as always, disposed. That fall, when Eleanor was ready for college, Ruth was not well. A visit to her doctor sent her home with troubled brow. Eleanor, not being able to extract much information from her, went to see the doctor herself and left with the knowledge that Ruth had an incurable disease. At least the doctor said it was incurable. But they would not believe that it was so. They consulted other doctors. So began a struggle of four long years against death. They visited hospital after hospital, clinic after clinic. As a last hope they took a trip of three thousand miles and returned with heavy hearts and saddened faces, not to the brick bungalow but to the cottage in the woods. There, with faithful Mary and Mike, they awaited the inevitable.

As the days passed, Eleanor’s spirit rebelled. “Why do I have to give up all I have in the world?” she asked herself. “Other girls have whole housefuls of families. Why should kind, good Aunt Ruth have to suffer? Why must anyone suffer?” Sometimes she lay awake at night pondering these weighty questions, and she thought about them many times during the day. Ruth glimpsed the struggle, and one night as Eleanor sat by her bed she said slowly, “Dear, I hope you are not going to feel too badly about all this.”

“I
can’t fe
el too badly. It just isn’t
right!”
Eleanor responded heatedly.

“Well, there was a time when I felt that way too. I’m not an old woman and I still want to live, especially since you are with me. I want to help with your work. But lying here in the long nights, I’ve done lots of thinking and wondering. I’ve been pretty headstrong. All my life I’ve wanted my own way and fought to get it. Having made one big mistake, I let it turn me from the right way.”

Eleanor patted her arm. “It has been a
good
way, Auntie dear, and I can’t feel it’s right for you to have to go.”

Ruth shook her head. “I tried to make it a good way, but I wanted it always to be
my
way, and the selfish way is never a good way. I have lived entirely for myself, and the world is no better for my being—yes, I know I’ve cared for you, but that has been pure joy for me. It has cost me nothing, and I have received everything.”

She was silent for a minute, then continued wistfully, “I wish I could go back and try again. I would try Mother’s way instead of my own. She lived first of all for her Lord, then for others—and last, for herself. She was happier than I have ever been.”

Eleanor did not speak, and Aunt Ruth went on, “As I have lain here thinking of my life I have realized how futile it has been compared to Mother’s. I had a better education than she had; I’ve had more money to spend in one year than she had in her lifetime. Yet she faced death as if she were confident of God’s leading in both the past and the future and could leave everything to Him. I haven’t let Him lead me in the past, and I have no assurance He will want to take over the case now.”

Mary, standing by, murmured with a tender voice as
she straightened the tumbled pillows, “Oh yes, He will! I know Him, and it’s glad He’d be to lead any lamb that called Him.”

But Eleanor did not dare speak, lest the bitterness in her heart overflow. She did not want to grieve this dear aunt so obviously near death. And if Aunt Ruth could get any comfort by returning to her childhood religion, let her do it. Eleanor had nothing against religion. It was a rather good thing for the weak and those in trouble. She was sure there was a God somewhere whose duty it was to help people who weren’t able to manage their lives alone. But if He did govern the affairs of mankind, as Mary often said, Eleanor felt He was being very cruel to her just now. Hurriedly she kissed her aunt good night and went to her own room to cry herself to sleep.

Waking in the middle of the night she saw a light in the invalid’s room and, donning robe and slippers, hurried in to find her aunt propped up on her pillow, writing.

“I couldn’t sleep.” Ruth smiled. “So I am writing a letter. Mary has been with me, and she is a rare comfort. Don’t worry about me, dear. I am not afraid now, and I feel much better. Don’t let me forget to have you call Mr. Hastings in the morning. I want him to come out and discuss some important business. There’s no time to waste. Run along back to bed, dear. I am feeling sleepy now. I will put this aside and turn out the light.”

Eleanor turned away with a heavy heart, and after the house was dark again she lay through the rest of the night, sleepless and rebellious. When she looked into the room the next morning, Aunt Ruth was sleeping quietly.

Out in the kitchen Mary sang softly as she prepared breakfast.

When she saw Eleanor she said, “The poor tired dear was sleepin’ so sweet I had no thought to wake her. We’ll let her get what rest she can from the naggin’ pain. She’ll rouse soon enough.”

But she did not rouse. The doctor came, but there was nothing to be done. Before the day ended, the tired body of this so lately reconciled child of God was freed forever from the pain that had tortured it, and her spirit was safe at home in the Father’s house.

On the table lay the unfinished letter. Its first words, “My dear, dear child,” told Eleanor that it was meant for her, but it was only after the funeral that she could force herself to read it.

The letter was never finished, but Eleanor did not care. She had what she thought was the expression of her aunt’s last wish, and her soul leaped to the challenge that it offered her. Then and there she dedicated her life to a battle with pain. What Aunt Ruth might have said had she been able to finish her letter did not matter. And the important business that she had wanted to discuss with her lawyer was not remembered again until years later when Eleanor wondered how her life might have been changed had her aunt been able to have that talk.

In a few days the lawyer called and, in the presence of Mike and Mary, read the will. There was a generous bequest to these faithful servants—enough to enable them to return to the place of their youth and spend the rest of their lives in comfort on the little farm they had dreamed about but never dared hope to acquire.

Everything else was given to Eleanor. Now she was free to continue her studies, to pursue the course to which she had pledged her life.

Long months ago Eleanor and Aunt Ruth had planned the course Eleanor was to follow—years of school and then laboratory, and Eleanor had always thought she knew all Aunt Ruth’s wishes as to her future. But the last paragraph of the will surprised her.

“This sum of money is to be kept in trust by the said administrator of the estate, and the income given to Eleanor Stewart only until her twenty-fifth birthday, at which time the entire principal shall be turned over to her with no restrictions. If, however, at any time prior to her twenty-fifth birthday, Eleanor contracts a marriage, she shall forfeit all claim to the estate, and the entire sum shall be paid to the Xenia Laboratories to be used in medical research.”