Mr. Beck read, “âIt is my expectation and hope that my daughter, Elisabeth Grace LeRoy, shall treat my sister, Agatha LeRoy Erastus, with the Christian charity she deserves for the rest of her natural life.'”
“How do you interpret that, Mr. Beck?” Agatha demanded.
He seemed to fight a smile. “How much Christian charity do you deserve?”
“That's not amusing.”
“Dr. LeRoy was a plain-speaking man, Mrs. Erastus. I expect he wishes Elisabeth to provide reasonably for you in gratitude for your years of service.”
Agatha pursed her lips and shook her head. “I came here years ago in the midst of my own grief and had to be reminded every day of the precious baby daughter I lost. I was paid not a dime for virtually raising this ungrateful child myself.”
“Ungrateful?” Elisabeth said. “If anything I've ever said or done has made you think that either I or my father were unâ”
Aunt Agatha waved her off. “I ought to have the right to buy this house,” she said.
Horrified at the depth of her aunt's disdain, Elisabeth snapped, “Fine!”
“Excuse me, Miss LeRoy,” Mr. Beck said. “Legally the house is not yours to sell until you are of age. In the meantime, it is under my purview, and I am charged with retaining it for you.”
“I'll sell it to you as soon as I'm able,” Elisabeth told her aunt, determined to keep peace.
“At fair market value, of course,” Mr. Beck said.
“At whatever price Aunt Agatha feels is fair,” Elisabeth said.
“Oh, my,” Mr. Beck said, putting away his papers, “I beg of you to carefullyâ”
“We both heard her loud and clear, Mr. Beck,” Agatha said.
“Yes, butâ”
“My niece will honor her word. She always does.”
Mr. Beck shook his head and took a breath to speak, but Mrs. Erastus cut him off. “Unless you have other business specifically related to the will or your purview, as you put it, I'll thank you to leave my house.”
“If it's your house already,” Mr. Beck said, rising. “I prefer to leave. But I promise you, I'll fight for my late client's wishes, and you mayâ”
“Good-by, Mr. Beck,” Agatha said.
Elisabeth believed God would have her honor her aunt, even if Agatha didn't deserve respect. Being cordial to her, let alone loving her, was a chore Agatha made more difficult. Elisabeth sympathized with young people who grew frustrated at home and couldn't wait to get out. Agatha reminded Elisabeth almost daily of her promise to sell the house.
“At fair market value,” Elisabeth said.
“Those were the lawyer's words, not yours,” Agatha said. “You said at whatever price I thought was fair.”
Not sure what she was going to do about her foolish promise, Elisabeth found herself more aware than ever of every detail of the only home she had ever known. She knew every squeak on the stairs, every depression in the floor. She loved the highly polished lacquer on the great banister, the feel of the flocked wallpaper in the parlor and front room. If Elisabeth indeed had to sacrifice this place to a promise made in anger, she would memorize every detail of it. But as she walked slowly from room to room, running her finger over every surface, from the bricks around the great fireplace to the plaster walls of the kitchen and the tile in the bathrooms, Elisabeth felt the bitterness of Aunt Agatha's stare.
Elisabeth found it a relief that summer to be gone nearly every night for training hour activities at church. Will Bishop often sat near her but hardly said two words to her. She spent most of her time deflecting the attentions of Art Childs, who seemed to always want to sit with her, walk with her, talk with her. “Can we walk in the woods tonight after the meeting?” he suggested one day.
“No, Art. No, thank you. All right?”
She feared she had humiliated him. He looked at the ground and busied the toe of his shoe rearranging the dirt. “Well, no, it's not all right, but I get the message.”
“There's no message, Art,” she said, feeling awful as he forced a smile, then turned from her. “It's just, Iâ”
“It's all right, Elisabeth,” he said. “I know you can do better.”
“It's not that at all,” she called after him, but he didn't look back.
There was, Elisabeth had to admit, a young man she wouldn't have minded strolling with. Five years older, he would be a junior that fall at a small Bible college in Grand Rapids. He had been invited to both sing and speak every night for a week, and his dark eyes and light hair captivated her nearly as much as his obvious devotion to God did. How strange to see a young person so bold and unashamed of his faith.
But Benjamin Phillips seemed to have eyes for no one, even the classmates who came with him to help out. More than one mooned over him, but not even the girls Elisabeth's age could detect favoritism. Art Childs tried vainly to best him on the baseball diamond, and Frances Crawford said she was convinced Benjamin had his eye on her. Elisabeth was certain his affections were set on things above.
“I guarantee he'll write to me,” Frances said more than once. “I may have to write him first, but you watch. I got his address.”
Later it came out that she had copied the address of the school from a pamphlet. She wrote him twice before receiving a cordial reply. “He's conceited after all,” she told Elisabeth.
“Why do you say that? Let me see his letter.”
Frances handed it over with a knowing look. Ben had written, “Forgive me if I can't immediately put a face to the name, Francine. I met so many wonderful kids at your church. I agree it was a refreshing time in the Lord, and thanks for your kind comments about my role in the program. God's best to you. Warmly in Christ, Benjamin P.”
“He doesn't sound conceited at all,” Elisabeth said. “He seems perfectly wonderful.”
“He didn't even remember me!”
“Should he have, Frances?”
“We shook hands after the service one night, and I told him I might come to his school.”
“I'm surprised he didn't propose on the spot.”
“That's not funny, Elisabeth. He should have remembered. I told him my name.”
“We all did.”
T
he pain of the loss of her father was never far from Elisabeth. She busied herself in church work, playing the piano, singing in the choir, teaching a Sunday school classâone year young girls, the next young boys. She joined the junior missionary society and took her turn writing to missionaries, though she soon found herself the only young person who stuck with that.
Her lingering grief drove her closer to God. Her friends sympathized, but even Frances never seemed to know what to say. Elisabeth tried to be cordial and appreciated any attempt to comfort her, but mostly she found solace in prayer.
Few wanted to hear that, she realized. Pastor Hill explained that “praying without ceasing” was actually attainable. He said Paul's expression meant “keeping the line open all the time. But our connection to God is not a party line. Corporate prayer is one thing, but to pray without ceasing means to keep your private line open to God every waking moment. Keep him at the forefront of your mind. Know he is with you, watching, listening, available for counsel in the secret places of the heart.”
Those secret places were where Elisabeth felt so needy, so fragile. She told Frances one day, “I sometimes feel apart from God for no reason.” Frances's face showed sympathy as if she had heard Elisabeth, but she said nothing. “How about you, Fran?” Elisabeth pressed.
Frances shrugged. “We
are
apart from God, aren't we?” she said. “I mean, someday we'll be with him in heaven, but that's a long way from here. I don't think God wants us walking around with our heads in the clouds all the time.”
Elisabeth was astounded that Frances seemed content to, in essence, leave God out of her life outside of Sundays and Wednesday nights. Elisabeth found comfort in the Psalms and other passages, but still she felt alone. Aunt Agatha badgered her to get out more, to mingle, to start setting her sights on a life's mate. That last surprised Elisabeth, and she had been unable to hide her reaction.
“Why, thank you,” Elisabeth said.
“What?” her aunt said. “You assume I think you too young? The sooner you're married, the sooner you're on your way.”
Elisabeth fought to keep from reacting angrily, though that cut deeply. How had she allowed herself to walk into it? She was hardly at a point where she was interested in finding someone with whom to share her life. In truth she feared becoming a hermit because of that lack of interest.
“Why don't you get lawyer Beck to dip into your trust and install a telephone in this house?”
Elisabeth shook her head. “Too extravagant,” she said. “Snyder's Pharmacy has a phone if we have an emergency, and we haven't had one since Daddy died.”
Drifting farther and farther from her friends at church and school, Elisabeth looked forward to Bible camp each summer forty miles to the north. Something about the place and the atmosphere and the people her age from other churches invigorated her, brought her out of herself.
From the moment the little Christ Church caravan turned onto the long, dusty, unpaved road that led to the camp, Elisabeth felt rejuvenated. She stood in line in a musty, wood-paneled hall, signing in. Then she walked the grounds alone, finding her cabin, her bunk, meeting her counselor. Briefly greeting friends from previous summers, she remained alone as long as she could, immersing her senses in the unique atmosphere.
The sandy soil near the lake, the slap of dozens of screen doors from cabins to mess hall to meeting house, the sound of the wind in the treesâall these recalled memories that allowed her to leave her grief in Three Rivers. The oppressive nagging of Aunt Agatha stayed there too. Her friends might have stayed behind as well, because she tended not to spend a lot of time with them during camp week. Elisabeth's spiritual antennae were tuned to others as devoted to God as she. First conversations with new acquaintances told the story. Did they talk about clothes and the opposite sex, or did they talk about Jesus? Some exuded spiritual superiority, which did not jibe with her view of devotion. But many were humble, serious about their faith, strange and wonderful young people who longed to pray and talk of God. With these new friends, she could steal away late at night, not for mischief but actually to discuss the message they had just heard. Elisabeth felt as if she were getting a glimpse of heaven. Here were serious-minded students, interacting mostly with strangers, yet unafraid to speak of their loyalty to Christ.
She couldn't deny that a major draw that summer was the renowned Ben Phillips. Elisabeth loved to hear him preach and sing, but mostly she was still simply impressed that a college student was so overt about his faith.
Fewer and fewer of the young men in her church went to camp each year, but one who never missed was Will Bishop. His father had died in the spring of 1916, apparently leaving no estate. Elisabeth marveled that Will was able to get a week off from his various jobs to get to camp at all. He spent his afternoons that week working maintenance, which must have been, Elisabeth deduced, how he paid the fee. He was the only other camper from her church who joined Ben Phillips and the others for what they called “prayer and sharing” late each night. Poor Will looked exhausted and never said a word. When they prayed around, he was skipped because he was either dozing or simply silent.
One night Will was late and someone asked about him. “He's from my church,” Elisabeth said, and quickly told the story of his father and of Will's industriousness.
“Does he ever say anything?” someone asked.
Elisabeth smiled. “He's just shy.”
Ben Phillips, who was not only guest college speaker and musician but also helped supervise the camp for the summer, spoke up. “I can't get him to say more than a word or two. But the other night, when we were feeling sorry for ourselves because we are oh-so-spiritual that we can't have fun like everyone elseâremember?” Several nodded, smiling. “And instead of going straight back to our cabins we played Capture the Flag? Did you notice that Will didn't play? He just wandered off to his cabin. I figured he was tired from working all afternoon.”
“I was afraid he thought we were being unspiritual,” someone said.
“Here's what happened,” Ben said. “I broke away from my team and circled far around the west row of cabins, then noticed a light in one of the windows. As I tiptoed by, there was Will on his knees by his bunk. He had fallen asleep.” Ben paused and shook his head. “I'll tell you something: I'd love just once to fall asleep praying.”
Elisabeth was proud of Will, glad she knew him, happy to call him a friend, though they often went months hardly speaking.
She loved those late-night sessions. Besides spiritual matters, they discussed issues of the day. One late night in the summer of 1917, a dozen or so like-minded campers sat before the fireplace in the fellowship hall discussing the war in Europe. “How long before it affects us?” a girl said.
Elisabeth had read in the newspaper that President Wilson had established a neutral policy toward what had become known as the Great War. Wilson said Americans should be “impartial in thought as well as in action,” but that was becoming more and more difficult. In 1915 Britain's blockade of Germany and Germany's retaliatory submarine attacks had actually cost some American civilian lives.
“I think most of America is on the side of the Allies,” Elisabeth said. “Realistically, how long can the United States remain neutral?”
Congress had approved a war resolution against Germany, but President Wilson, whose reelection motto was “He kept us out of war,” would not let America officially join the Allies. Yet just a few months before, in May of 1917, a military draft had been initiated.
“All we can do is pray,” a girl said.
Several others nodded, but Ben raised a hand. “At the risk of sounding overly dramatic,” he said, “some of us may be called upon to do more than that. General Pershing wants a million men in Europe by this time next year. I just graduated and want to go on to seminary. But if I get draftedâ”
“Surely they won't take a seminary student,” someone said.
“Maybe you can be a chaplain.”
“Or you couldâ”
Ben interrupted. “I'm not looking for a way out. I'm just saying some of us will be asked to do more than pray.”
“Get married!” someone said. “They're not taking men with families.”
Ben smiled. “No prospects. Anyway, that would be a pretty bad reason for getting married.”
It was close to midnight when the meeting broke up. As the group drifted out into the night, Elisabeth battled her emotions. She wanted to talk to Ben, to let him know that she would be thinking of him, praying for him. But she didn't want to appear forward. She had been as intrigued with Ben as anyoneâeven Frances Crawford, who had by now gone through a series of summer romancesâbut Elisabeth's concern for him carried no ulterior motive.
She was in the doorway with only Ben behind her when she hesitated. Ben had turned, apparently to turn out the light, and bumped into her.
“Oh!” he said, his hand gentle on her shoulder. “I'm sorry, Elisabeth. I didn't see you.”
She couldn't get over that he knew her name. He seemed as embarrassed as she. She assured him it was her fault as they stepped into the night and he locked the door.
“I, uh, just wanted to tell you, Mr. Phillips, that Iâ”
“Mr. Phillips!” he said. “I'm not that much older than you. Please call me Ben.”
“Okay,” Elisabeth said, glad a dim light on a nearby pole did not make plain her red face. She wanted to ask how he knew her name, but she finished her thought. “I will be praying about your war. I mean, your future, whether it means war or not. For you, that is.”
Elisabeth wanted to start over, to fix it. But she said nothing.
“Well, thank you,” Ben said.
They stood there awkwardly, and as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she found herself studying his two-toned shoes. He was dramatically handsome and trim, with a flair for class without flash.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “May I walk you?”
“I'm over the rise there,” she said, grateful hers was the farthest cabin from the hall.
They strolled slowly, and he was uncharacteristically quiet. It couldn't be that he was as nervous as she. It was all she could do to keep from asking how it was that he was twenty-two and still single, let alone apparently not dating. Surely he had a girl at home.
“I didn't know you knew my name,” she said. He stopped and looked at her, as if in shock. “Well, I didn't,” she said.
“Everyone knows who you are, Elisabeth.”
“Go on,” she said.
“Don't be coy,” he said. “You stand out.”
Elisabeth was dying to ask in what way, but she would not. She looked down. “Really, how did you know my name?”
“Truthfully? I asked your friend the first summer I was here.”
“My friend?”
“Francine something?”
“Frances? Frances Crawford?”
“She wrote me once.”
“You asked Frances my name? She never told me that.”
“I asked her not to. You were what, fourteen?”
“Fifteen.”
“I was twenty.”
She wanted to say, “So?” but the whole conversation made her woozy. “So you knew my name but never spoke to me?”
“Your father had died, wasn't that it?” She nodded. “And to be frank, high school girls often become enamored with college men. I dared not risk that.”
“Of course not. You wouldn't want someone like me to become enamored with someone like you. A college man.”
“It wasn't that,” he said in the darkness. “You were so young, and, of course, grieving. I could have been misunderstood.”
“By whom?”
“You, of course. And there are rules about speakers fraternizing with campers.”
“And those have been rescinded?”
“Ah, no. But this was unplanned. I mean, you approached me. Well, you didn't approach me, butâ”
“
You
ran into
me,”
she said.
“Guilty,” he said. “But you said you wanted to speak to me.”
“And now I have. And so I should go. My cabin is just over there.”
He looked at his watch. “We have ten minutes till lights out.”
“But you wouldn't want to be seen fraternizing with a camper,” she said. “A high school girl.”
“I'm sorry,” he said. “I didn't mean to offend you.”
“I'm teasing, Ben. I'm not very good at this.”
“At what?”
“Social graces.”
“People love you here,” he said. “It's obvious.”
“I'm barely sociable at home.”
“Maybe you're in your element here.”
She cocked her head. “I do love it.”
“But you've got a fella back home.”
She shook her head.
“But Francine, Frances, told meâ”
“Told you what?” Elisabeth said.
“A young man from your church ⦔
“Who?”
“A couple of years older. He was with you the last two summers.”
“Art?”
“That's it.”
“Art Childs?” She laughed aloud. “Actually, Art and Frances have begun seeing each other.”
They stood by a big tree in front of Elisabeth's cabin. Ben looked at his watch again and seemed to study the ground. “I wish I'd known that,” he said.
She held her breath. “Why?”
“I might have broken the rule.”
“Ben!”
“I mean this year, not then.”
“And what made you think I would be interested?” she said, amazed at her own nonchalance.
He smiled. “I would have taken my chances.”
“We really should call it an evening,” she said.
“May I finish my thought?”
“I think not.”