But the young man who had driven the car from the crossroads, and who had held on to his glorious tenor through the closing chorus, rising like a touch of glory over the whole body of singers until the final note had died away exquisitely, had suddenly crumpled into a limp heap and slid down upon the stairs.
Someone slipped around from among the basses and lifted him up; two tenors came to his assistance and bore him to the choir room; and Grace with anxious face slipped from the organ-bench and followed as the sermon text was announced. And no one was the wiser. Cornelia in her secluded seat with her singing heart knew nothing of the commotion.
A doctor was summoned from the congregation and discovered a dislocated shoulder, a broken finger, and a bad cut on the leg that had been bleeding profusely. Carey’s shoe was soaked with blood. Carey, coming to, was much mortified over his collapse and looked up anxiously and explained that he had had a slight accident but would be all right in a minute. He didn’t know what made him go off like that. Then he promptly went off again.
Maxwell and Harry from their vantage of the doorway had seen the sudden disappearance and hurried round to the choir room. Now Maxwell explained briefly that Carey had “had a little trouble with a couple of roughs who were trying to get away with somebody’s car” and must have been rather shaken up by the time he got to the church.
“He sang wonderfully,” said Grace in a low tone full of feeling. “I don’t believe I ever heard that solo done better even by a professional.”
“It certainly was great!” said Maxwell, and Harry slid to the outer door and stood in the darkness, blinking with pride and muttering happily, “Aw, gee!”
Carey came to again presently and insisted on going back for the last hymn and the response after the closing prayer. Carey was a plucky one, and though he was in pain and looked white around his mouth, he slid into his seat up by the organ and did his part with the rest. His hair had been combed and his face washed in the meantime, and Grace had found a thread and needle and put a few stitches in the torn garments, so that the damage was not apparent. Carey received the eager congratulations of the entire choir as they filed past him at the close of service. It was a proud moment for Cornelia, standing on her little niche at the head of the stairs, unable to get out till the crowd had passed. Everyone stopped to tell her how proud she ought to be of her brother, and her cheeks were quite rosy and her eyes starry when she finally slipped away into the choir room to find Maxwell waiting for her, a tender solicitude in his face.
“He’s all right,” he hastened to explain. “Just a little faint from the loss of blood, but he certainly was plucky to sing that solo with his shoulder out of place. It must have taken a lot of nerve. We’ve got him fixed up, and he’ll soon be all right.”
Cornelia’s face went white in surprise.
“Was he hurt?” she asked. “Oh, I didn’t think there would be danger—not of that kind! It was so kind of you to go after him! It is probably all due to you that he got here at all.” She gave him a look that was worth a reward, but he shook his head, smiling wistfully.
“No, I can’t claim anything like that,” he said. “Carey didn’t even know I was there, doesn’t know it yet, in fact. He fought the whole thing out for himself and took their car and ran away. It’s that nervy little youngest brother of yours that’s the brave one. If it hadn’t been for Harry, I should have been a mere onlooker.”
“Well, I rather guess not!” drawled Harry, appearing suddenly from nobody knew where, with Louise standing excitedly behind him. “You just oughta a seen Max fight! He certainly did give that driver guy his money’s worth.”
“Oh!” said Cornelia. “Let’s get home quick and hear all about it. Where is Carey?”
Carey and Grace were coming down the steps together, and his sister came toward him eagerly.
“Oh, Carey, you’re hurt!” she said tenderly. “I hadn’t thought—” she stopped suddenly with a half look at Grace.
Carey grinned.
“You needn’t mind her,” he said sheepishly. “She knows all about it. I ‘fessed up!” And he gave Grace a look of understanding that was answered in full kind.
“Wasn’t his singing wonderful?” said Grace in an earnest voice with a great light in her eyes. “I kept praying and feeling sure he would come. And just at the last minute, when I’d almost made up my mind I must sing it myself, he came. I just had time to hand him the music before it was time for him to begin. It was simply great of him to sing it like that when he was suffering, and with only that second to prepare himself.”
Carey smiled, but a twinge of pain made the smile a ghastly grin, and they hurried him into the car and home, taking Grace Kendall with them for just a few minutes’ talk, Maxwell promising to take her home soon. They established Carey on the big couch with cushions under his shoulder, and then Harry could stand it no longer and came out with the story, which he had already told in full detail to Louise outside the choir-room door, giving a full account of Maxwell’s part in the fight. It was the first that Carey knew of their presence at the crossroads, and there was much to tell and many questions to answer on all sides. Harry had the floor with entire attention, much to his delight, while he told every detail of the capture of the two and his own tying of the man who got away. Maxwell had his share of honor and praise and in turn told how brave Harry had been, fooling his man with his jackknife for a revolver. Everybody was excited, and everybody was talking at once. Nobody noticed that twice Carey called Grace by her first name; and once Maxwell said “Cornelia” and then talked fast to hide his embarrassment. The father came in and sat quietly listening in the corner, his face filled with pride, gathering the story bit by bit from the broken sentences of the different witnesses, until finally Harry said, “Say, Kay, whaddidya do with that stolen car?”
Carey grinned from his pillows.
“Left her on the road somewhere in front of the church, with the three girls in the backseat.”
“Good night!” Harry jumped up importantly. “Kay, do you know that car was stolen? I heard ‘em say so. They called it ‘borrowed,’ but that means they stole it. You might get arrested.”
“I should worry!” shrugged Carey, making wry face at the pain his move had cost him. “I’m not in it anymore, am I?”
“But the girls!” said Harry again. “D’you s’pose they’re in it yet?”
“Don’t worry about those girls, Harry,” growled Carey, frowning. “They weren’t born yesterday. They’ll look out for themselves. And I might as well finish this thing up right here and now and own up that I’ve been a big fool to ever have anything to do with girls like that. And I’m glad my sister went to work and invited one of ‘em here to show me what a fool I have been. I don’t mind telling you that I’m going to try to have more sense in future, and say, Nell, haven’t you got anything round to eat? I certainly am hungry, and I’ve got to work tomorrow, remember.”
Everybody laughed, and Cornelia and Louise hurried out for the sandwiches and chocolate that had been forgotten in the excitement. But the father got up and went over to his son with a beaming face. Laying his hand on the well shoulder, he said in a proud tone, “I always knew you’d come out right, Carey. I always felt you had a lot of sense. And then your mother was praying for you. I knew you couldn’t miss that. I’m proud of you, Son!”
“Thanks, Dad! Guess I don’t deserve that, but I’ll try to in the future.”
But just here Harry created a diversion by saying importantly, “Max, don’t you think you oughta call up the police station and tell ‘em ‘bout that car? Somebody else might steal it, you know.”
While Maxwell and Harry were busy at the telephone and Cornelia and Louise were in the kitchen getting the tray ready, Carey and his father and Grace Kendall had a little low-toned talk together around the couch. When Cornelia entered and saw their three heads together in pleasant converse, her heart gave thanks, and Louise close behind her whispered, “Nellie, He did answer, didn’t He
?”
A minute later, as they stood in the living room, Cornelia with the big tray in her hands, Harry whirled around from the telephone and shouted, “Hurrah for our interior decorator!” They all laughed and clapped their hands, and Maxwell hurried to take the tray from her, giving her a look that said so much that she had to drop her lashes to cover the sudden joy that leaped into her face. Just for the instant she forgot the crimson and white lady and was completely happy.
Maxwell deposited the tray on the sideboard and took her hand.
“Come,” he said gently. “I have something to say to you that won’t wait another minute.”
He drew her out on the new porch, behind the Madeira vines that Carey had trained for a shelter while more permanent vines were growing, and there in the shadow they stood, he holding both her hands in a close grasp and looking down into her eyes, which were just beginning to remember.
“Listen,” he said tenderly. “They have been saying all sorts of nice things about you, and now I have one more word to add: I love you! Do you mind—dearest?”
He dropped her hands and put his arms softly about her, drawing her gently to him as if he almost feared to touch one so exquisitely precious. Then Cornelia came to life.
“But the lady!” she cried in distress, putting out her hands at arm’s length and holding herself aloof. “Oh, it is not like you to do a thing like this!”
But he continued to draw her close to himself.
“The lady!” he laughed. “But there is no other lady! The lady is really a vampire that tried to suck my blood. But she is nothing to me now. Didn’t I tell you yesterday that she wasn’t even a friend?”
“Oh,” trembled Cornelia. “I didn’t understand.” And she surrendered herself joyously to his arms.
“Well, I want you to understand. It’s a miserable tale to have to tell, and I’m ashamed of it, but I want you to know it all. I meant to tell it yesterday, but everything seemed to be against me. How about riding in the park tomorrow afternoon and we’ll talk it all out and get it done with forever. And meantime, can you take me on trust? For I love you with all the love a man can give to a woman, and nobody, not even in imagination, ever had the place in my heart that you have taken. Can you love me, dear heart?”
The company in the house missed them after a time and trooped out to find them, even Carey getting up from his cushions against the protest of Grace and coming to the door.
“You know I’ve got to go to work tomorrow,” he explained smiling. “I can’t afford to baby myself any longer.”
And Cornelia came rosily out from behind the vines and went in for the good nights, her eyes starry with joy.
As they went up the stairs for the night Louise slipped an arm around her sister and whispered happily, “Cornie, I don’t believe that red lady is anything at all to Mr. Maxwell, do you?”
Cornelia bent and kissed her sister tenderly and whispered back in a voice that had a ring in it, “No, darling, I know she isn’t!”
Louise, falling cozily to sleep while her sister arranged her hair for the night, said to her sleepily, “I wonder now, how she knows! She didn’t seem so sure yesterday. He must have told her about her out on the porch.”
Chapter 30
Mr. Copley came up the hill with a spring in his step one evening in late September. Cornelia, glancing out of the window to see whether it was time to put the dishes on the table, caught a glimpse of his tall figure and noticed how erectly he walked and how his shoulders had squared with the old independent lines she remembered in her childhood. It suddenly came over her that Father did not look so tired and worn as he had when she first came home. The lines of worry were not so deeply graven, and his figure did not slump any longer. She was conscious of a glad little thrill of pride in him. Her father was not old. How young he seemed as he sprinted up the hill, almost as Carey might have done!
Cornelia hurried the dinner to the table; pulled the chain of the dining room light, for the darkness was beginning to creep into the edges of the room; adjusted a spray of salvia that had fallen over the side of the glass bowl in the center of the table; and then turned to greet her father. She was reaching her hand to strike the three silver notes of the dinner bell that hung on the wall by the sideboard, but her hand stopped midway, and her eyes were held by the look of utter joy on the face of her father. For the first time it struck her that her father had once been a young man like Carey. He looked young now, and very happy. The spring was still in his step, a great light was in his eyes, and a smile that seemed to warm and brighten everything in the room. When he spoke just to say the commonplace “Good evening” as usual, there was something almost hilarious in his voice. The children turned to look at him curiously, but he seemed not to be aware of it. He sat down quietly enough and began to carve the meat.
“Beefsteak!” he said with satisfaction. “That looks good! I’m hungry tonight.”
Cornelia reflected that this was the first time she had heard him speak of being hungry since she came home. She looked curiously at him again, and once more that feeling of wonder at the young look in his eyes touched her. All through the meal, as their parent talked and smiled and told happy little incidents of the day, the children wondered, and finally, when the dessert was almost finished, Carey looked intently at him and ventured, “Dad, you look as if you’d had a raise in your salary.”
“Why, I have!” said Mr. Copley, looking at his son smiling. “I’d almost forgotten. Meant to tell you the first thing. By the way Cornelia, I’d like it if you’d get up some kind of a fancy supper tomorrow night. I’d like to bring—ah—an old friend home with me. Have chicken and ice cream and things, and some flowers. You’ll know what. You might ask the minister’s daughter over, too, and Arthur Maxwell. I’d like them to be here. Can you fix it up for me, daughter?”
Cornelia, bewildered, said, “Yes, of course,” and immediately plunged into questions concerning the increase of salary.
When did it happen? Was it much? Was his position higher, and did he have to work any harder?
“Yes, and no,” he answered calmly, as if a raised salary were an everyday happening and he were quite apart from it in his thoughts. “I shall have practically the same work but more responsibility. It’s a kind of responsibility I like, however, because I know what ought to be done, and they’ve given me helpers enough to have it done right. The salary will be a thousand dollars a year more, and I suppose, if you should want to go back to college by and by and get your diploma, we could manage it.”
“Indeed, no!” interrupted Cornelia with a rising color in her cheeks and an unexplained light in her eyes. “I’m quite well enough off without a diploma, and I’m too deep in business now to go back and get ready for it. What’s a diploma, anyway, but a piece of paper? I never realized how trivial, after all, the preparations for a thing are compared to the work itself. Of course, it’s all right to get ready for things, but I had practically done most of my preparation at college, anyway. The rest of the year would have been mostly plays and social affairs. The real work was finished. And, when I came home, I was no more ready to go out into the world and do the big things I had dreamed than I was when I entered college. It took life to show me what real work meant and how to develop a life ideal. I truly have got more real good from you dear folks here at home than in all my four years’ course together. Though I’m not saying anything against that, either, for of course that was great. But, Father, I’m not sorry I had to come home. These months here in this dear little house with my family have been wonderful, and I wouldn’t lose them out of my life for all the college courses in existence.”
She was suddenly interrupted by resounding applause from her brothers and sister and smothered with kisses from Louise, who sprang from her seat to throw her arms around her neck.
“We all appreciate what you have done for us and our home,” said the father with a light in his eyes. “Your mother will tell you how much when she has an opportunity to se
e what you have done here.”
“But, Dad,” interrupted Carey, as he saw his father rise and glance at his watch, “aren’t you going to tell us about your raise? Gee! That’s something that oughtn’t to be passed over lightly like a summer rain. How did it happen?”
The father smiled dreamily.
“Another time. I must hurry now. I have an appointment I must keep, and I may not be home till late tonight. Don’t wait up for me. It was just a promotion, that’s all. You won’t forget about the supper tomorrow night, Cornelia, and be sure to get plenty of flowers.”
He hurried out, still with that preoccupied air, leaving his children sitting bewildered at the table.
“Well, I’ll be hanged! What’s Dad got up his sleeve, I’d like to know? I never saw him act like that, did you, Cornie? Just a promotion! That’s all! A mere little matter of a thousand more a year! Mere trifle, of course. Tell us the details another time! I say, Cornie, what’s up?”
But Cornelia was as puzzled as her brother.
“Perhaps he’s going to bring home one of the firm,” she said. “We must make the house as fine as possible. Father doesn’t have many parties, and we’ll make this a really great occasion if we can. Strange he wanted to have others present, though. I wonder if he really ought. Hadn’t I better talk it over with him again, Carey? If it’s one of the firm, he would think it very odd to have outsiders.”
“Grace Kendall isn’t an outsider!” blustered up Carey. “No, don’t bother Dad about it any further. He told you what he wanted; ask them, of course. Max didn’t cut his eyeteeth last year, either; they both know how to keep in the background when it’s necessary. Anything I can do tonight before I go to choir rehearsal to help get ready for tomorrow?”