Pages of Promise, page 21
“Will you tell me about it?”
Hesitation showed in him, but he said, “All right. It’s a long story and not a happy one.”
Mona listened as he struggled to tell her how he had come to give up a successful life, with everything that most people dreamed of, for a small farm in the Ozarks. His eyes revealed how deeply he felt about what he had done. “I couldn’t stand that kind of life, and there was no escape from it. Everywhere agents, publishers—all calling, all wanting me to write another book.”
“But didn’t you want to write another book?”
“Of course I did, but I didn’t want it butchered. It was just a commercial thing to most of them, and I thought it was more than that, Mona.”
“It is more than that.” Mona began telling him again how deeply moved she had been by Bride of Quietness.
Henderson listened carefully, but then he interrupted her. “You’ve come, Mona, because you want to make the book into a movie, and you want to be in it.”
“Yes. That’s why I came.” Mona’s answer was simple, and she made no apology. “I think it could be a great movie, not just a good movie. Adam has talked about it many times, that it needs to be available for those people who will never read a book but would go to see a film. Would you consider it, Tom? You don’t know Adam, but you know the family. Adam would never do anything to harm your book.”
“Maybe not intentionally,” Henderson said, slowly, “but Hollywood has a way of ruining everything it touches.”
His words raked across Mona’s nerves, for it had been said to her before, by him and by others. She said resignedly, “I guess that’s your final answer then.”
“Why, it’s final for today.” He looked at her and noted the loveliness of her hair as it framed her face. She looked very young in the dapple sunlight under the trees, and he said quietly, “I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Nobody does.”
She had said all she could. Her surrender touched him. He expected a battle, but he recognized her honesty and integrity in refusing to give one. She smiled at him and said nothing more.
A woman’s silence may mean many things. He wondered what it meant in her. He was enticed by the mystery. It touched his own solitary thinking, and he felt a slowly rising excitement. She had the power to stir him, to deepen his hungers and his sense of loneliness.
She got to her feet, and he rose quickly. He asked, “Are you staying on for a while?”
“Do you want me to?”
The heat of something rash and timeless and thoughtless brushed them both. He opened his arms and she came to him. She put her arms around his neck as he embraced her, and she offered her lips. There was sweetness and richness and enjoyment of an intimacy they’d both longed for. When they released each other, Tom took a deep breath and said, “We’re having venison stew for lunch. Will you stay?”
“Oh, yes. I’ll stay.”
Mona’s visit was strange—at least to her. She saw Tom every day. She spent time with her uncle Logan. She listened to Richard preach in the church for Brother Crabtree, and for two weeks nothing changed.
She had come here to coerce Tom to do something, but she had discovered a softness and a gentleness in herself that would not permit her to do that. So her days passed in quiet contentment.
One blot marred her visit. After supper at the Vine one night, she went to the kitchen to help Carmen do the dishes. Mona felt a resistance in Carmen and with feminine wisdom knew what was troubling her. This was confirmed when Car-men faced her suddenly, her eyes narrowed to slits. “Leave him alone!” she whispered fiercely. “You have everything. When you come here, he’s restless. You could have any man you want. Why do you have to come here for him?”
Mona knew there was nothing she could say. This young woman admired and revered and, seemingly, loved Tom. It was natural enough—he had come for her and for her children when nobody else cared. He had given them safety, had become a haven, and Tom himself, Mona realized, had become the symbol of all that Carmen longed for.
“I’m sorry, Carmen,” she said quietly. She turned and walked away, knowing nothing else to say.
Later, when Tom spoke of Carmen, he seemed unaware of what was happening. He walked Mona to her car, and she made a tentative attempt to speak to the situation she saw developing.
“The kids are growing up. She’s happy,” Tom said.
“Are you sure about that?”
Henderson said nothing.
Mona continued. “I think she’s a very lonely woman. She craves what most women want.”
“I know she does,” he said.
“She’s a young woman. She wants a husband and a home. You know, don’t you, that it’s you she wants?”
“So what would you have me do, Mona? Throw her out because I don’t want to marry her?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Sometimes you just have to give people time to work through their own emotions. I think she can’t help what she feels.”
“That makes sense,” Mona conceded. He opened the car door and she got in.
“Love is a rare thing in this world. Shouldn’t I value hers for me and love her in return, even if it’s not the same? I don’t think Jesus was afraid to let people love him.”
She smiled. “I’ll have to think about that.” Mona didn’t agree with him altogether, but she saw that he’d given the matter a lot of thought. “Good night, Tom.”
He leaned in and kissed her. “Good night, Mona. Ride over in the morning. We’ll go on a picnic.”
Part 4
QUIET TIMES
19
OUT OF THE SILENCE
Mona sat down across from Irving Segal, one of the better-known producers in Hollywood. She felt nervous. At once he demanded, “Well, it’s a great script, isn’t it? I think it’ll be big-time, Mona.”
She hesitated for only a moment, then shook her head. “I think it’s not for me, Mr. Segal.”
Segal prided himself on casting his pictures well. He considered long before making a choice, and his temper slipped a little, for he had expected an instant acceptance. “I wouldn’t have offered you the role unless I was convinced you can do it!”
“It’s just not for me. I know you wouldn’t want anyone in your picture who couldn’t give it her best, and I just couldn’t do that.”
Segal was unaccustomed to people turning him down, and he glared at her. “You’re getting pretty choosy, Miss Stuart! I’ve heard you turned down a picture for Hopkins over at RKO, one that turned out to be pretty hot stuff.”
“Yes, I did.”
Segal puffed angrily at his cigar, then said, “Big stars can afford to do that, but you can’t. I’ll give you one more chance. We’ll say no more about it. Will you do it?”
Mona knew this decision would affect her future. She would never be asked again by Segal to do anything, and word would get around, just like it had gotten around to him about the RKO deal. But the script seemed to her a tawdry thing without any significance at all. It was full of not-so-subtle sexual allusions and guns and noise, and nothing in it appealed to her. She got to her feet and smiled, saying graciously, “It was kind of you to think of me, Mr. Segal, but I just can’t do it.” She felt his anger strike against her, and when he grunted and sat down and began going through papers without giving her another look, she turned and walked out of the office. Her knees felt slightly weak. Instead of taking a cab back to her apartment, she began to walk.
She searched the faces she met and saw several pretty young women—there seemed to be a superabundance of them in Hollywood—and she thought, Any one of these would give anything to have a chance like I just turned down. What’s wrong with me? She walked until she grew tired, then went back to her apartment. It was a period in her life when she could not reason clearly. Her thoughts went to Tom Henderson, and she knew that if he were here he would tell her something about the way she was acting. She thought about her life and, once more, was not pleased. She shook her shoulders angrily and muttered, “Mona, you’ve got to get over this!”
But she did not get over it. There was a hunger in her that she could not identify, a sadness that would rise in her every time she grew still, and, in desperation, she made a decision.
Mona had not been intimately acquainted with her aunt Lenora, but for years, at the family reunions, she had made it a point to spend time with this aunt. Though Lenora was confined to a wheelchair, she had worked tirelessly for the Salvation Army and had more life in her than almost anyone Mona knew. Something about the silver-haired woman drew her. How could a woman who had never had a so-called normal life be so filled with joy?
“You’ll have to come to Chicago and spend some time with me,” Lenora said every Christmas. At the last reunion there had been something more pressing than usual about her invitation. Her sharp, hazel eyes had held Mona’s, and the younger woman had the idea that her whole personality was exposed to Lenora.
“I’ve got to talk to somebody.” She located the number and called, and after warm encouragement from Lenora to come, she thought, I must be losing my mind going to see a Salvation Army lassie—but I can’t talk to anyone else, and I’ve got to have some help.
Mona arrived at the Salvation Army headquarters in Chicago, and she was shown to Lenora’s office. The colonel, as Lenora was called, was in a modern office with every kind of up-to-date equipment surrounding her. When Mona entered, Lenora gasped and said, “Look at you!”
As soon as the door closed, Lenora wheeled herself around and came over and lifted her arms. “Give me a good Hollywood kiss,” she said. She took Mona’s kiss on her cheek and said, “Now, are you hungry? Do you want lunch?”
“Not really. I ate on the plane.”
“Then come along and let me give you a tour. That’ll make you hungry!”
Mona laughed at her aunt’s enthusiasm, and the tour of the organization was revealing. She discovered at once a strange marriage of spiritual content to expert business practice.
“We try to do two things here in the army—one is to present the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior to everyone who will hear. That’s what General Booth, the founder, had in his heart,” Lenora said. “The other thing we try to do is to help those who need it.”
“You certainly do that, Aunt Lenora—or must I call you Colonel Stuart?”
Lenora laughed and shook her head. She was a youthful-looking woman in her sixties, and her ash-blonde hair was streaked with light gray, but her crippling injury had neither affected her zest for life nor her general health. She spoke in glowing terms of the work that the army did all over the world. Finally she said, “Now, we’re going out to dinner and celebrate.”
“What are we celebrating?” Mona said.
Lenora took Mona’s hand, and she smiled. There was a sweetness and intensity about her that was missing in most people.
“To celebrate my niece coming to see me after all these years.”
During the days, when Lenora was busy, Mona spent some time simply wandering around the city, and she visited her aunts Rose and Christie and some of her cousins, but every night she and Lenora talked together until such a late hour that Mona felt guilty, knowing that her aunt had to get up early in the morning.
On the third night at eleven o’clock, Mona looked over at her aunt, who was quietly studying her. “I shouldn’t be keeping you up this late, Aunt Lenora.”
“Of course you should. I’ve had the best time ever since you’ve been here. I don’t usually have time to get lonely, but I like to have family around.”
“I know you miss Uncle Amos.”
“I do, indeed. He came every week, at least. We went out to eat together and talked about the days of our youth. Yes, I miss him a great deal, but I visit your Aunt Rose a lot, and Maury, and I hear great things about Richard.” Lenora paused. “But you haven’t told me your problem yet. I know you have one.”
Mona knew that the moment had come. She shook her head in despair. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Aunt Lenora. I have everything I always thought I’d want, but I’m not happy. I’m miserable, and I don’t think it’s going to get any better.”
Lenora smiled and wheeled her chair closer so that she could put her hand on Mona’s knee. “I wondered how long it would take you to get to this,” she said.
“You knew something was wrong with me, didn’t you?”
“Why, child, one look into your eyes and my heart just bled! You’re so lonely and hurt that people would have to be blind not to see it.”
“They must be blind then,” Mona said, shaking her head. “I haven’t talked to anybody about it. What’s wrong with me, Aunt Lenora?”
“You’ve heard of Saint Augustine?”
“Well, yes. A little.”
“A great man of God. He said, ‘There’s a vacuum in every human being, an empty spot, a God-shaped hollow, and until God fills that no man or no woman will ever know peace, or happiness, or joy.’ Isn’t that wonderful, Mona?”
“I–I don’t think so. I mean, what does it mean? It isn’t good to have a hollow space inside, is it?”
“Why, it’s the way we were made. The first humans were made like that, to have communion with the Lord God, and when they violated God’s commandment and couldn’t face him anymore, that’s when all the misery of this world started.” She spoke quietly and reached over and took her Bible, which was never far away. After reading several Scriptures she said, “You’re unhappy because you’re not complete. You need Jesus Christ.”
“I’ve heard that all my life, and I know you found completeness, and my parents certainly have, but Stephen and I have missed it. He’s bitter and angry and hates the world.”
“I know he is. I write to him often, and I pray for him every day. God’s not through with that young man yet.” Lenora fell silent for a moment and then said, “But what about you? You’ve heard the gospel, but I want to share it with you again. What Jesus has done for me . . .”
Mona listened. She ordinarily did not like to be preached to, but there was something in her aunt that held her captive. Lenora read the old Scriptures over again: “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”; “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish”; “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief”; “Ye must be born again.”
“Do you believe all of these things I’m reading out of God’s Word, Mona?”
“Yes, I believe them, but I don’t know how to—well, I don’t know how to make them real. Suppose I did give my heart to God and got saved. Would I have to play a trumpet in the Salvation Army?”
“Would you be willing to?” Lenora’s reply came back like a shot.
Mona lowered her head. “No,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t be willing to do that.”
“Then you’re not ready. Jesus calls us to be his disciples, his servants, and the first thing that we learn in the Bible is that God’s children are called to obey. I have no idea whether he’d call you to toot on a trumpet, but until you’re ready to do it, you’re not ready for Jesus.”
“I don’t know what to do. I wish God would just make me do what he wants.”
“He’ll never do that—though most of us who are Christians think we would like it if he did. Did you ever hear of John Donne?”
“The English poet?”
Lenora nodded. “He wrote a poem in which he said he wanted God to just make him be good.”
“Do you have a copy?”
“Yes—right here,” Lenora said quickly, tapping her temple. “I memorized it a long time ago. My favorite part goes like this:
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy,
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”
Mona listened carefully. “That’s very strong stuff, Aunt Lenora—I can never be chaste until I’m ravished. And I can’t be free until I’m imprisoned? How can that be?”
“I think all women and men are in some sort of a prison, my dear. For some it’s alcohol, for others lust. And we must be, in effect, made captive by God himself. When we are his prisoners, then we are really free for the first time. But we must give ourselves to God’s will, and he will not make little puppets out of us. He’s looking for sons and daughters not robots and slaves.”
Mona’s eyes filled with tears, and her voice trembled. She pressed her hands against her lips and tried to control herself. “I don’t know what to do! I just don’t know, Aunt Lenora!”
Lenora had counseled many women, and this one, being of her own blood, was especially precious to her. She prayed silently for a moment or two, letting her eyes close, then she opened them and said, “I think you know too much, Mona. You’ve heard the gospel all your life, and you’ve become hardened to it in a way. Here’s what I want you to do. Go someplace—doesn’t matter where—lock yourself in a room, get out in the middle of the woods where you can holler and nobody will hear you. Stay there, and begin to call on God. Don’t give up. God has been seeking you, but now you must seek him.”
The cabin on the Buffalo River was set in the most isolated place that Mona could find to rent for a week. “It ain’t much. Not for a lady like you,” Jack Simms said. He was a little awed by talking to a real live Hollywood actress. “It’s just one room, and there ain’t no electricity nor even running water. Just drink out of the creek. No bathroom, you understand. You wouldn’t like it.”
“I’ll take it for a week. Could you take me there?”
They bounced over crooked roads, through first-growth fir and pine timber that towered over them, and then he left her, with a week’s supply of food.
The sound of the jeep diminished, and she walked outside and took a deep breath. The trees were whispering overhead in the breeze, the sky was blue, and the creek purled beside the little cabin, tinkling as it fell over the stones.
