Re-Creations

  “I just wish they could all see this lovely house from top to bottom,” she said as she looked around. “It would do them a world of good.”

  “Why, they could,” said Cornelia, smiling. “I suppose I could clear it all up and let them go over it, if you think that would help any. I’d love to do the work if you think I’m able. I never talked in public in my life. I’m not sure I can.”

  “Oh, this isn’t talking in public,” said the minister’s wife eagerly. “This is just telling people that don’t know how, how to do things that you have done yourself. I’m sure you have that gift. I’ve listened to you talking, and you’re wonderfully interesting. But would you consider giving a reception and letting them see how you have made your house lovely? That would be a wonderful addition, and I’m sure the ladies would be delighted to pay extra for that. And we’d all come over and help you clear up afterward, and before, too, if you would let us, although I’m sure you always look in immaculate order for a reception or anything else every time I’ve ever been here.”

  When the matter was finally arranged and Mrs. Kendall had left, Carey came in, scrubbed, shaved, neatly attired, and proposed that they have a sing. Maxwell joined in eagerly and sang with all his splendid voice. Then after a time he asked Cornelia to play, and before they realized it, the evening was over. Not until Carey said in his usual way, “Call me at quarter to seven, will you, Nell? And turn on the hot water when you get down; that’s a dear,” did Cornelia remember her curiosity concerning the conversation between her brother and Maxwell. Carey said nothing about it, and Cornelia was enough of a wise woman not to ask.

  But Carey told her the next morning. He was so excited he couldn’t keep it to himself.

  “Didn’t know I was going to be a salesman up at Braithwaite’s, did you?” he said quite casually between mouthfuls of breakfast.

  Harry paused in his chewing a second and eyed him skeptically.

  “Yes, you are not!” he remarked scornfully, and went on chewing again.

  But Cornelia, eager-eyed, leaned forward. “What do you mean, Carey? Is that a fact?”

  “Well, just about,” said Carey, enjoying their bewilderment. “Maxwell told me the manager wants to see me this morning. Says he’s had his eye on me for three months, been looking up everything about me, and when that picture came out in the paper, he told Maxwell he guessed I’d do. Said they wanted a man that could jump into a situation like that and handle it, a man with nerve, you know, that had his wits about him. It’s up to me now to make good. If I do, I get the job all right. It isn’t great pay to start, only thirty bucks a week, but it’s all kinds of prospects ahead if I make good. Well, so long. Wish me luck.” And Carey flung out of the house amid the delighted exclamations of his astonished family.

  “Oh God, You have been good to us!” breathed Cornelia’s happy soul as she stood by the window, watching Carey’s broad shoulders and upright carriage as he hurried down the street to the car. Carey was happy. It fairly radiated even from his back, and he walked as if on air. Cornelia was so glad she could have shouted “Hallelujah!” Now, if he really got this position—and it looked reasonably sure—he was established in a good and promising way, and the family could stop worrying about him.

  What a wonderful young man Maxwell was to take all that trouble for practically a stranger! Her eyes grew dreamy, and her lips softened into a smile as she went over every detail of the evening before, remembering the snatches of talk she had caught and piecing them out with new meaning. She leaned over and laid her face softly among the roses he had brought and drew in a long, sweet breath of their fragrance. And he had been doing this for them all the time and not said a word, lest nothing would come of it. As she thought about it now, she believed he had had the thought about doing something for Carey that first night when he came so unexpectedly to dinner, that dreadful dinner party! How far away and impossible it all seemed now! That terrible girl! What a fool she had been to think it necessary to invite anyone like that to the house! If she had just let things go on and take their natural course, Maxwell would have dropped in that night, and they would have had a pleasant time, and all would have been as it was at present, without the mortification of that memory. Carey with his new ambitions and hopes would surely never now disgrace himself by going again with a girl like that. It had been an unnecessary crucifixion for the whole family.

  Yet they never would have known how splendid Maxwell could be in a trying time without her, perhaps. There was always something comforting somewhere. Still, she would like to be rid of the memory of that evening. It brought shame to her cheeks even yet to remember the loud, nasal twang of the cheap voice, the floury face, the low-cut, tight little gown, the air of abandon! Oh! It was awful!

  Then her mind went back to the day she returned from college and to the sweet-faced, low-voiced woman who was the mother of this new friend. It hardly seemed as if the two belonged to the same world. What would she think if she ever heard of Clytie? Would the young man ever quite forget her and wipe the memory from his mind so completely that it would never return to shadow those first days of their acquaintance?

  Carey returned early in the afternoon with an elastic step and a light of triumph in his face. He had been employed as a salesman in one of the largest firms in the country, a business dealing with tools and machinery and requiring a wide grasp of various engineering branches. He was just in his element. He had been born with the instinct for machinery and mechanics. He loved everything connected with them. Also he was a leader and natural mixer among men. All these things Maxwell later told Cornelia had counted in his favor. The fact that he was not a college man had been the only drawback, but after the accident, and after the manager had had a long, searching talk with him, it had been decided that Carey had natural adaptability and hereditary culture enough to overcome that lack, and they voted to try him. The manager felt that there was good material in him. Maxwell did not tell Cornelia that what he had told the manager concerning her ability and initiative had had much to do with influencing the decision. The manager was a sharp man. He knew a live family when he saw it, and when he heard what Cornelia had accomplished in her little home, he was eager to see the brother. He felt that he also might be a genius! Now if Carey could only make good!

  Chapter 25

  It was a wonderful day of June skies and roses. Maxwell had sent a note by special messenger to Cornelia to say that two world tennis champions were to play at the Cricket Club grounds that afternoon and would she like to go? If so, he would call for her at two o’clock.

  So Cornelia had baked macaroni and cheese, roasted some apples, and made a chocolate cornstarch pudding. There was cold meat in the refrigerator, and she wrote a note to Louise in case she should be late.

  She looked very pretty and slim in her dark-blue crêpe de chine dress made over with little pockets to cover where it had to be pieced. She resurrected an old dark-blue hat with an attractive brim, re-dyed it, and wreathed it with a row of little pale-pink velvet roses. Nobody would ever have guessed that the roses were old ones that had been cleaned and retouched with the paintbrush till they glowed like new ones. She added a string of peculiar Chinese beads that one of the girls at college had given her and looked as chic and pretty as any girl could desire when Maxwell called for her. His eyes showed their admiration as he came up the steps and found her ready, waiting for him, her cheeks flushed a pretty pink, her eyes starry, and little rings of brown hair blowing out here and there about her face.

  “That’s a nice hat,” he said contentedly, his eyes taking in her whole harmonious outfit. “New one, isn’t it? At least, I never saw it before.” He noted with pleasure that her complexion was not applied.

  “A real girl!”he was saying to himself in a kind of inner triumph! “A real girl! What a fool I used to be!”

  The day was wonderful, and there was a big box of chocolates in the car. Cornelia, listening to her happy heart, found it singing.

  They
made long strides in friendship as they drove through the city and out to the Cricket Club grounds, and Cornelia’s cheeks grew pinker with joy. It seemed as though life were very good indeed to her today.

  They drove the car into the grounds, found a good place to park it, and were just about to go to their seats on the grandstand when a young, gimlet-eyed flapper with bobbed hair rushed up crying, “Oh, Arthur Maxwell, won’t you please go over to the gym dressing rooms and find Tommy Fergus for me? He promised to meet me here half an hour ago, and I’m nearly dead standing in this sun. I’d go in and sit down, but he has the tickets, and he promised on his honor not to be late. I knew it would be just like this if he tried to play a set before the tournament.”

  There was nothing for Maxwell to do but introduce the curious-eyed maiden to Cornelia and go on the mission, and the young woman climbed up beside Cornelia and began to chatter.

  It appeared that her name was Dotty Chapman, that she was a sort of cousin of Maxwell’s, and that she knew everybody and everything that had to do with the Cricket Club. She chattered on like a magpie, telling Cornelia who all the people were that by this time were coming in a stream through the arched gateway. Cornelia found it rather interesting.

  “That’s Senator Brown’s daughter. She won the blue ribbon at the Horse Show last winter. That’s her brother—no, not the fat one, the man on the right. He’s the famous polo player. And that’s Harry Garlow, yes, the tall one. He’s a nut! You’d die laughing to hear him. There, that girl’s the woman champion in tennis this year, and the man with her is Mrs. Carter Rounds’ first husband, you remember. They say he’s gone on another woman now. There goes Jason Casper’s fiancée. Isn’t she ugly? I don’t see what he sees in her, but she’s got stacks of money, so I suppose he doesn’t care. Say, do you know Arthur Maxwell’s fiancée? I’m dying to meet her. They say she is simply stunning. I saw her in the distance dancing at the Roof Garden the other night, but it was only for a second. Somebody pointed her out, I’m not sure I’d know her. They say she is very foreign in her appearance. Have you met her yet? Isn’t that her now, just getting out of that big blue car with Bob Channing? I believe it is. Look! Did you ever see such a slim figure? And that dress is darling. They say all her clothes come from abroad and are designed especially for her. The engagement isn’t announced yet, you know, but it will be I suppose as soon as Mrs. Maxwell gets home again. Miss Chantry doesn’t wish it spoken of even among her most intimate friends until then; she doesn’t think it is courteous to her future mother-in-law, that’s why she goes around with other men so much. She told my cousin Lucia so. But everybody knows it, of course. You, I suppose you know all about it, too? There he comes! They’re going to meet! I wonder how they’ll act. Isn’t it thrilling. My goodness! Don’t they carry it off well; he’s hardly stopping to speak. I don’t believe she likes it. I wouldn’t, would you? Isn’t that white crêpe with the scarlet trimmings just entering? But where on earth is Tommy? He didn’t bring him. Oh—why Tommy! Is that you? Where on earth have you been? Didn’t Mr. Maxwell find you? He’s been after you; there he is coming now! What made you keep me waiting so long? I’ve stood here an hour and simply cooked! What? You meant the other gate? Well, what’s the difference? Why didn’t you say so? Oh, well, don’t fuss so, let’s go find our seats. What? Oh, yes, this is Miss—Cope, did you say? Copley? Oh yes! Miss Copley, Mr. Fergus. Thank you so much, Cousin Arthur. Good-bye.”

  She was gone, vanishing behind the neighboring grandstand, but so was the glory of the day.

  Cornelia’s face looked strangely white and tired as Maxwell helped her down, and she found her feet unsteady as she walked beside him silently to their seats. There was something strange, the matter with her heart. It kept stopping suddenly and then turning over with a jerk. The sun seemed to have darkened about her, and her feet seemed weighted.

  “That girl is a perfect pest,” he said frowning, as he helped Cornelia to her seat. “I was just afraid she was going to wish herself on us for the afternoon. She has a habit of doing that, and I didn’t mean to have it this time. I was prepared to hire a substitute for the lost Tommy if he didn’t materialize. Her mother is a second or third cousin of my grandmother’s aunt or something like that, and she is always asking favors.”

  Cornelia tried to smile and murmur something pleasant, but her lips seemed stiff, and when she looked up she noticed that he was hurriedly scanning the benches on the other side of the rectangle. Following his glance her eyes caught a glimpse of white set off by vivid scarlet. Ah! Then it was true! Her sinking heart put her to sudden shame and revealed herself to herself.

  This then had been the secret of her great happiness and of the brightness of the day. She had been presuming on the kindness of this stranger and actually jumping to the conclusion that he was paying her special attention. What folly had been hers! How she had always despised girls who gave their hearts before they were asked, who took too much for granted from a few pleasant little attentions.

  Mr. Maxwell had done nothing that any gentleman might not have done for a casual friend of his mother’s. When she began to sift the past few weeks in her thoughts, his attentions had mainly been spent on her brothers. A few roses, and this invitation this afternoon. Nothing that any sensible girl would think a thing of. She was a fool, that was all there was of it, an everlasting fool, and now she must rouse herself somehow from this ghastly sinking feeling that had come over her and keep him from reading her very thoughts. He must never suspect her unwomanliness. He must never know how she had misconstrued his kindness. Oh, if she could only get away into the cool and dark for a minute and lie down and close her eyes, she could get hold of herself. But that was out of the question. She must sit here and smile in the sun with the gleam of scarlet across the courts and never, never let him suspect. He was all right, of course he was, all right and fine, and he doubtless thought that she, too, knew all about his fiancée, only he could not speak about it now because the lady had placed her commands upon him for his mother’s sake. How nice to honor his mother!

  A breath of a sigh escaped her, and she straightened up and tried to look bright and interesting.

  “You are tired!” he said, turning to look into her eyes. “I don’t believe this is going to be a restful thing for you at all. Wouldn’t you rather get out of here and just take a ride or something—in the park, perhaps?”

  “Oh, no indeed !” said Cornelia quickly sitting up very straight and trying to shake off the effects of the shock she had suffered. “I’ve always wanted to see a great tournament, and I’ve never had the opportunity. Now, tell me all the things I need to know, please, to be an intelligent witness.”

  He began telling her about the two world-famous men who were to play, about their good points and their week ones, and to give a scientific account on certain kinds of services and returns. And she gave strict attention and asked intelligent questions and was getting on very well, keeping her own private thoughts utterly in the background, when suddenly he said, “Do you see that lady in white just directly opposite us? White with scarlet trimmings. I wish you would look at her a moment. Here, take the binoculars. Sometime I am going to tell you about her.”

  Cornelia tried to steady her hand as she adjusted the binoculars to her eyes and to steady her lips for a question. “Is she—a—friend?”

  “I hardly think you’d call it that—anymore!” he answered in a curiously hard tone. But Cornelia was too preoccupied to notice.

  “Shall we—meet her?” she asked after studying the exquisite doll face across the distance and wondering if it really were as wonderfully perfect up close. Wondering, too, why she seemed to suddenly feel disappointed in the man beside her if this was his choice of a wife.

  “I think not,” he said decidedly, and then a sudden clapping arose, growing, like a swift-moving shower. “There, there they are! The players. That’s the Englishman, that big chap; and this man, this is our man. See how supple he is. He has a great reach. Watc
h him now.”

  After that there was no more opportunity to talk personalities and Cornelia was glad that she could just sit still and watch, although with her preoccupied mind she might as well have been at home cooking dinner for all she knew about that tournament. The players came and went like little puppets in a show, the ball flew back and forth, and games and sets were played, but she knew no more about it than if she had not been there. Now and then her eyes furtively stole a glance across the way at the scarlet line on the white.

  Maxwell had glanced at her curiously several times. Her attitude was one of deep attention. She smiled just as pleasantly when he spoke, but somehow her voice had lost the spring out of it, and he could not help thinking she was weary.

  “Let’s get out of here before the crowd begins to push,” he whispered, as the last set was finished and the antagonists shook hands under fire of the heavy rounds of applause.

  He guided her out to the car so quickly that they almost escaped the rush, but just within a few paces of the car they came suddenly upon the voluble Dotty and her escort.

  “Oh, Cousin Artie!” cried Dotty eagerly. “I’ve just been telling Tommy that I knew you would take us over to Overbrook if we could catch you in time. You see, we both have a dinner engagement out to Aunt Myra’s, and we’ve missed the only train that would get us there in time. You won’t mind, will you, Miss Cope, Copley, I mean? It isn’t far, and you know how cross Aunt Myra gets when any of us are late to an engagement with her, don’t you, Artie?”

  “Not at all!” answered Cornelia coolly as soon as there was opportunity to speak. “My home is right on the way.”

  Maxwell accepted the situation with what grace he could. Dotty climbed into the front seat when he opened the door for Cornelia.