© 2012 by Grace Livingston Hill
Print ISBN 978-1-61626-656-1
eBook Editions:
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Faceout Studio, www.faceoutstudio.com
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com
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Printed in the United States of America.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Author Biography
Chapter 1
1920s Eastern United States,
near Philadelphia
Cornelia Copley pressed her face against the windowpane of the car and smiled with a brave showing of courage as the train moved away from the platform where her college friends huddled eagerly for the last glimpse of her.
“Don’t forget to write, Cornie!” shouted a girl with black eyes and a frantic green sweater over a green-and-yellow striped sport-skirt.
“Remember you’re to decorate my house when I’m married!” screamed a pink-cheeked girl with blue eyes and bewitching dimples.
“Be sure to come back for commencement!” chorused three others as the train got fairly underway.
Cornelia watched the staid old gray buildings penciled over with the fine lines of vines that would burst into green tenderness as soon as the spring should appear, and thought how many good times she had had within those walls, and how terrible, how simply unthinkable it was that they were over forever, and she would never be able to graduate! With tears gathering in her eyes and blurring her vision, she watched till the last flutter of the flag on the top of Dwight Hall vanished, the big old cherry tree, gnarled and black against the November sky, faded into the end of the library, and even the college hedge was too far back to discern; then she settled slowly back into her seat, much as a bit of wax candle might melt and droop before the outpouring of sudden heat. She dropped into her seat so sadly and so crushingly that the sweet-faced lady in the long sealskin coat across the aisle turned and looked commiseratingly at her. Poor child! Now what was she having to endure? she wondered, as she watched the sweet lips drop at the corners, the dimples around the eyes disappear, and the long lashes sweep down too late to catch the great tear that suddenly rolled out and down the round, fair cheek.
Cornelia sat with her face turned toward the window and watched the familiar way for a long time through unseeing eyes. She was really looking into a hard and cruel future that had suddenly swooped down upon her and torn her from her friends, her career in life—all that she thought she held dear—and was sending her to an undesirable home among a family who did not understand her and her aspirations nor appreciate her ability. Her mouth took on hard little strange lines, and her deep, dreamy eyes looked almost steely in their distress. It all seemed so unnecessary. Why couldn’t Father understand that her career meant so much, and another year or two in college would put her where she could be her own mistress and not be dependent upon him? Of course she couldn’t argue with him about it just now after that rather touching letter he had written; but if he had only understood how important it was that she should go on and finish her course, if only any of them had ever understood, she was sure he would have managed someway to get along without recalling her. She took out the letter and read it over again. After all, she had scarcely had time to read it carefully in all its details, for a telegram had followed close upon it bidding her come at once, as she was badly needed, and of course she had packed up and started. This was the letter, written in a cramped, clerkly hand:
Dear Daughter,
I am very sorry to have to tell you that your mother, who has been keeping up for the last six months by sheer force of will, has given out and seems to be in quite a serious condition. The doctor has told us that nothing but absolute rest and an entire change will save her to us, and of course you will understand that we are so rejoiced over the hope he holds out that we are trying to forget the sorrow and anxiety of the present and to get along as best we can without her. I have just returned from taking her, with the assistance of a trained nurse, to the Rest Cure Hospital at Quiet Valley over at the other end of the state, where the doctor tells me she will have just the conditions and treatment that her case requires. You will be glad to know that she was quite satisfied to go, feeling that it was the only possible thing left to do, and her main distress was that you would have to leave college and come home to take her place. My dear Nellie, it grieves me to the heart to have to write this and ask you to leave your beloved work and come home to help us live, but I see no other way out. Your Aunt Pennell has broken her leg and will not be able to be about all winter; and even if she were well enough, she never seems to understand how to get along with Harry and Louise.
And then, even if there were anyone else, I must tell you that there is another reason why coming home is necessary. It is that I cannot afford to let you stay at college. I cannot tell you how hard it looks to me written out on paper and how my spirit sinks beneath the thought that I have come to this, that I cannot afford to let my daughter finish her education as she had planned because I have not been able to make money enough to do all the other things that have to be done also. I have tried to keep the knowledge of my heavy losses from you until you should be through with your work at college. Mother and I thought we could get along and not let you know about it, because we knew you would insist on coming right home and helping; but now since Mother has broken down you will have to be told the truth. Indeed, I strongly suspect that your mother in her great love for you and the others has brought on this weak state of health by overdoing, although we tried all we could to keep her from working too hard. You will, I know, want to help in every way you can, so that we shall be able to surround your dear mother with every necessity and even luxury that she should have and so make her recovery more sure and speedy. It costs a good deal at Quiet Valley. It is an expensive place, but nothing is too good for your dear, patient mother, who has quietly been giving her very life for us all without letting us know how ill she was.
There is another painful thing I must tell you, and that is that we have had to move from our old home, also on account of the expense, and you will not find it nearly so pleasant or convenient here as at the old house, but I
know my brave daughter will bear it like a soldier and be as helpful and resourceful as her mother has always been. It gives me great comfort to think of your immediate coming, for Louise is working too hard for so young a girl. Harry helps her as much as he can. Moreover, I feel troubled about Carey. He is getting into the habit of staying out late with the boys, and—but you will know how to help him when you get here. You and he were always good friends. I cannot tell you what a tower of strength you seem to me to be just now in this culmination of trials. Be sure to telegraph me on what train you will arrive, and we will meet you.
With deep regret at the necessity of this recall, which I know will be a great trial to you,
Your loving father
Cornelia looked like anything but a tower of strength as she folded the letter and slipped it back into her handbag with a deep-drawn sigh. It had given her the same feeling of finality that had come when she first read it. She had hoped there might be a glimmer, a ray, somewhere in this second reading that would help her to hope she might go back to college pretty soon when she had put the family on its feet again and found the right person to look after them. But this money affair that Father laid so much emphasis upon was something that she could not quite understand. If Father only understood how much money she could make once she was an interior decorator in some large, established firm, he would see that a little money spent now would bring large returns. Why, even if he had to borrow some to keep her in college till her course was finished, he would lose nothing in the end.
Cornelia put her head back against the cushion and closed her eyes wearily. She hadn’t slept much the night before, and her nerves were taut and strained. This was the first minute in which she had done anything like relax since the letter came—right into the midst of a junior show in which she had had charge of all the stage settings! It really had been dreadful to leave when she was the only one who knew where everything should be. She had spent half the night before making drawings and coloring them and explaining to two half-comprehending classmates. But she was sure they would make some terrible mistake somewhere, and she would be blamed with the inharmony of the thing. It was too bad when she had acquired the reputation of being the only girl in college who could make such effects on the stage. Well, it couldn’t be helped!
Of course, she was sorry her mother was sick, but Father spoke hopefully, confidently about her, and the rest would probably do her good. It wasn’t as if Mother were hopelessly ill. She was thankful as any of them that that had not come. But Mother had always understood her aspirations, and if she were only at home she would show Father how unreasonable it was for her to have to give up now when only a year and a half more and the goal would be reached and she could become a contributing member of the family, rather than just a housekeeper!
Over and over the sorrowful round Cornelia’s thoughts went as mile after mile rushed away under the wheels and home drew nearer. Now and then she thought a little of how it would be when she got home, but when one had to visualize an entirely new home about which one had not heard a thing, not even in what part of the city it was located, how could one anticipate a homecoming? They must have just moved, she supposed, and probably Mother had worked too hard settling. Mother always did that. Indeed, Cornelia had been so entirely away from home during her college life that she was almost out of harmony with it, and her sole connection had been cheerful little letters mostly filled with what she was going to do when she finished her course and became an interior decorator.
It was almost two years since she had been at home, for last summer and the summer before she had spent in taking special courses in a summer school not far from her college, and the intervening Christmas she had been invited to a wonderful house party in New York at the home of one of her classmates who had unlimited money and knew just how to give her friends a good time. Mother had thought these opportunities too good to be wasted, and to her surprise Father also had been quite willing for her to spend the extra time and money, and so she had grown quite away from the home and its habits. She began to feel, as she drew nearer and nearer to the home city, almost as if she were going among strangers.
It was growing quite dusky, and lights were glinting out in stray farmhouses along the way. The train was due in the city at seven o’clock. It was almost six, and the box of fudge that the girls had supplied her with had palled upon her. Somehow she did not feel hungry, only sick at heart and woefully homesick for the college and the ripple of laughter and chatter down the corridors; the jokes about college fish and rice pudding; the dear, funny exchange of secrets; even the papers that had to be written! How gladly would she go back now and never grumble about anything if she only knew she could finish without an interruption and then move to the city to live with Mable and Alice as they had planned, and get into big work! Oh the dreams, the bubbles that were being broken with all their pretty glitter of rainbow hues gone into nothingness! Oh the drab monotony of simple home life!
So her thoughts beat restlessly through her brain and drove the tears into her smarting eyes.
Presently the train halted at a station, and a small multitude rushed in, breezy, rough, and dirty, with loud voices and garments covered with grease and soil; toilers of the road, they were going back to the city, tossing their clamor across the car, settling their implements out of the way under their big, muddy shoes. One paused before Cornelia’s empty half seat, and suddenly before he could sit down a lady slipped into it, with a smile and a motion toward a whole empty seat across the aisle. The man accepted the offer good-naturedly, summoning a fellow laborer to share it with him, and Cornelia looked up relieved to meet the smile of her seal-clad former neighbor across the aisle.
“I thought it would be more pleasant for us both, dear, if I came over here,” she murmured with a smile. “They were pretty strong of garlic.”
“Oh, thank you!” said Cornelia and then grew shy as she noticed the jewels on the delicate hand that rested on the soft fur. What part had she in life with a woman like this, she who had to leave college because there wasn’t money enough to let her stay till she had finished? Perhaps she was the least bit ungracious to the kindly woman who had made the move obviously for her protection, but the kindly stranger would not be rebuffed.
“I’ve been watching you all the afternoon,” she said. “And I’m glad of this opportunity of getting acquainted with you if you don’t mind. I love young people.”
Cornelia wished her seatmate would keep quiet or go away, but she tried to smile gratefully.
“I was so interested in all those young people who came down to see you off. It reminded me of younger days. Was that a college up on the hill above the station?”
Now indeed was Cornelia’s tongue loosened. Her beloved college! Ah, she could talk about that even to ladies clad in furs and jewels, and she was presently launched in a detailed description of the junior play, her face glowing vividly under the opened admiration of the white-haired, beautiful woman, who knew just how to ask the right questions to bring out the girl’s eager tale and who responded so readily to every point she brought out.
“And how is it that you are going away?” she asked at last. “I should think you could not be spared. You seem to have been the moving spirit in it all. But I suppose you are returning in time to do your part.”
Cornelia’s face clouded over suddenly, and she drew a deep sigh. For the moment she had forgotten. It was almost as if the pretty lady had struck her in the face with her soft, jeweled hand. She seemed to shrink into herself.
“No,” she said at last sadly, “I’m not going—back ever, I’m afraid.” The words came out with a sound almost like a sob and were wholly unintentional with Cornelia. She was not one to air her sorrows before strangers, or even friends, but somehow the whole tragedy had come over her like a great wave that threatened to engulf her. She was immediately sorry that she had spoken, however, and tried to explain in a tone less tragic. “You see, my mother is not well and had to go
away, and—they needed me at home.”
She lifted her clouded eyes to meet a wealth of admiration in the older woman’s gaze.
“How beautiful! To be needed, I mean,” the lady said with a smile. “I can think just what a tower of strength you will be to your father. Your father is living?”
“Yes,” gasped Cornelia with a sudden thought of how terrible it would be if he were gone. “Oh, yes; and it’s strange—he used those very words when he wrote me to come home.” Then she grew rosy with the realization of how she was thinking out loud to this elegant stranger.
“Of course he would,” asserted the lady. “I can see that you are! I was thinking that as I watched you all the afternoon. You seem so capable and so—sweet !”
“Oh, but I’m not !” burst out the girl honestly. “I’ve been real cross about it ever since the letter came. You see,”—and she drew her brows, earnestly trying to justify herself—“you see, I can’t help thinking it’s all a mistake. I’m glad to go home and help, but someone else could have done that, and I think I could have helped to better purpose if I had been allowed to stay and finish my course and then been able to help out financially. Father has lost some money lately, which has made things hard, and I was planning to be an interior decorator. I should soon have been able to do a good deal for them.”
“Oh, but my dear! No one can take a daughter’s place in a home when there is trouble, not such a daughter’s place as you occupy, I’m sure. And as for the other thing, if you have it in you it will come out, you may be sure. You’ll begin by decorating the home interior, and you won’t lose anything in the end. Such things are never lost nor time wasted. God sees to that, if you are doing your best right where He put you. I can just see what an exquisite spot you’ll make of that home, and how it will rest your mother to know you are taking her place.”
Cornelia sadly shook her head.
“There won’t be any chance for decorating,” she said slowly. “They’ve had to move away from the home we owned, and father said it wasn’t very pleasant there.”