CHAPTER XII
It was several weeks before the Copley house was finished. Even then there were cushions to make out of old pieces brightened up by the stitches of embroidery or applique work of leaves cut from bits of old velvet. There were rugs to braid out of all the old rags the house afforded and there were endless curtains to wash and hem and hemstitch and stencil and put up. All the family united to make the work as perfect a thing of the kind as could be accomplished. Every evening was spent in painting or papering, or rubbing down some bit of old furniture to make it more presentable, and gradually the house began to assume form and loveliness.
Paint, white paint, had done a great deal toward making another place of the dreary little house. The kitchen was spotless white enamel everywhere, and enough old marble slabs had been discovered to cover the kitchen table and the top of the kitchen dresser, and to put up shelves around the sink and under the windows. Mr. Copley brought home some ball-bearing casters for the kitchen table, and spent an evening putting them on, so it would move easily to any part of the kitchen needed. Cornelia and Louise rejoiced in scrubbing the smooth white surfaces that were going to be so convenient and so easily kept clean. Even the old kitchen chairs had been painted white and enamelled, and Cornelia discovered by chance one day that a wet sponge was awonderful thing to keep the white paint clean; so thereafter Louise spent five minutes after dinner every evening going about with her wet sponge, rubbing off any chance finger-marks of the day before and putting the gleaming kitchen in battle-array for the next day.
The dining-room had gradually become a place of rest and refreshment for the eyes as well as for the palate. Soft green was the prevailing color of furniture and floor, with an old grass rug scrubbed back to almost its original color. The old couch was tinkered up and covered with gay cretonne in greens and grays, with plenty of pillows covered with the same material. The curtains were white with a green border of stencilling. The dingy old paper had been scraped from the walls, which had been painted with many coats of white; and a gay green border had been stencilled at the ceiling. The carpenter had found an old plate-rail down in the shop, which, painted white, made a different place of the whole thing, with a few bits of mothers’ rare old china rightly placed, two Wedgwood plates in dull yellow, another of bright green, a big old blue willow ware plate, some quaint cups hung on brass hooks under a little white shelf. One couldn’t ask for a pleasanter dining-room than that. It dawned upon the family anew and joyously every time any one of them entered the room, and made them a little better and a little brighter because it spoke “home” so softly and sweetly and comfortingly.
“Mother won’t know the place!” said Louise, standing back to survey it happily after putting the sideboard inperfect order with clean linen cover. “She won’t know her own things, will she? Won’t it be great when she comes?”
But the living room was the crown of all, wide and pleasant and many-windowed, with its stone fireplace, wide mantel, adorned with a quaint old pair of brass candlesticks that had belonged to the grandmother; the walls covered with pale-yellow felt-paper like soft sunshine; the floor planed down to the natural wood, oiled and treated with shellac; and the old woolen rugs in two tones of gray, which used to be bedroom rugs when Cornelia was a baby, washed and spread about in comfortable places; it no more resembled the stuffy, dark little place they used to call a “parlor” than day resembles night. Soft white sheer curtains veiled the windows everywhere, with over-curtains of yellow cotton crêpe; and the sunshine seemed to have taken up its abode in that room even on dark days when there was no sun to be seen. It was as if it had stayed behind from the last sunshiny day, so bright and cheerful was the glow.
The little “bay” was simply overflowing with ferns the children had brought from the woods, set in superfluous yellow and gray bowls from the kitchen accumulation. Harry ran extra errands after hours, and saved enough to buy the yellowest, throatiest canary the city afforded, in a big wicker cage to hang in the window.
Cretonne covers in soft gray tones covered the shabby old chairs and couch, and Carey and his father spent hours with pumice-stone and oil, polishing away at the piano,the bookcase, and the one small mahogany table that was left, while Cornelia did wonderful things in the way of artistic shades for little electric lamps that Carey rigged up in odd, unexpected corners, made out of all sorts of queer things; an old pewter sugar-bowl, this with a shade of silver lace lined with yellow, a relic of some college costume; a tall gray jug with queer blue Chinese figures on it that had been among the kitchen junk for years, this with a dull blue shade; a bright yellow vase with a butterfly-yellow shade; and a fat green jar with willow basket-work around it on which Cornelia put a shade of soft green, with some old brown lace over it.
The room was really wonderful when it was done, with two or three pictures hung in just the right spot, and some photographs and magazines thrown comfortably about. Really one could not imagine a pleasanter or more artistic room, not if one had thousands to spend. The first evening it was all complete the family just sat down and enjoyed themselves in it, talking over each achievement of cushion or curtain or wall as a great connoisseur might have looked over his newly acquired collection and gloated over each specimen with delight.
Carey’s delight in it all was especially noticeable. He hovered around, getting new points of view, and changing the arrangement of a chair or a table, whistling wildly and gleefully, a new Carey to them all. For the whole evening he did not offer to go out, just hung around, talking, singing snatches of popular songs, breaking into a clumsy two-finger “rag” on the piano now and then, andfinally ending up with a good sing with Cornelia at the piano. It was curious, but it was a fact that this was the first time Cornelia had had time since her home-coming to sit down and play for them; and it seemed like a revelation to all. They had not realized how well she could play, for she had been studying music part of the time in college. Also no one had realized how well Carey could sing. Perhaps he had never had half a chance with a good accompaniment before. At any rate, it was very plain that he liked it, and would sing as long as any one would play for him.
And the father liked it, too. Oh,howhe liked it! He took off his glasses, put his head back on the new cretonne cushion, closed his eyes, and just enjoyed it. Now and then he would open his eyes and watch the flicker of the fire in the new fireplace, look from the one to the other of his children, sigh, and say, “I wish your mother were here now,” and again; “We must write mother about all this. How she will enjoy it!”
Then right into the midst of this domestic scene there entered callers.
Carey was singing when the knock came, and did not hear them; or else he would most surely have disappeared. It was a way Carey had. But the knock came twice before Louise heard it and slipped to the door, letting in the strangers, who stood listening at the door, motioning to her to wait until the song was finished.
Then Mr. Copley saw them, and arose to come forward. Carey, feeling some commotion, turned; and thesong stopped like a shot, a frown of defiance beginning to grow between his brows.
The strangers were a man and a woman, and a young girl a little older than Louise and younger than Cornelia; and one could see at a glance that they were cultured, refined people, though they were quietly, simply dressed. Carey, in his gray flannel shirt open at the neck and the old trousers in which he had assisted in the last rites of putting the room in perfect order, looked down at himself in dismay, and backed precipitately around the end of the piano as far out of sight as possible, meeting the intruders with a glare of disapproval. Cornelia was the last to stop playing and look around, but by that time the lady had spoken.
“Oh, please don’t stop! We want to hear the rest of the song. What a beautiful tenor voice!”
Cornelia arose to her duties as hostess, and came forward; but the man by this time was introducing himself.
“I hope we haven’t intruded brother.” He grasped Mr. Copley’s welcoming hand. “I’m just the minister at the little church around your corner here, and we thought we’d like to get acquainted with our new neighbors. My name is Kendall, and this is my wife and my daughter Grace. I brought the whole family along because I understood you had some daughters.”
“You’re very welcome,” said Mr. Copley with dignity that marked him a gentleman everywhere. “This is my daughter Cornelia; this is Louise, and Harry; and”—with an almost frightened glance toward the end of the piano,lest he might already have vanished—“this is my son Carey.”
There was something almost proud in the way he spoke Carey’s name, and Cornelia had a sudden revelation of what Carey, the eldest son, must mean to his father in spite of all his sharpness to the boy. Of course Carey must have been a big disappointment the last few months.
Carey, thus cornered, instead of bolting, as his family half expected of him, came forward with an unexpected grace of manner, and acknowledged the introduction, his eyes resting interestedly on the face of Grace Kendall.
“I’m not very presentable,” he said. “But, as I can’t seem to get out without being seen, I guess you’ll have to make the best of me.”
Grace Kendall’s eyes were merry and pleasant.
“Please don’t mind us,” she said. “You look very nice. You look as if you had been playing tennis.”
“Nothing so interesting as that,” said Carey. “Just plain work. We’re still tinkering around this house, getting settled, you know.”
“There’s always such a lot to do when you move, isn’t there? But what a lovely spot you’ve made of it!” She turned, and looked about her. “Why, I shouldn’t know it was the same house. What a lot you have done to it! This room looks so big! How did you get the space? You’ve changed the partitions, haven’t you? I used to come here to visit a little lame boy, and it was such a tiny little front room; and now this is spacious! And that wonderful fireplace! Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yes,” put in Mr. Copley, as the whole group seemed absorbed in gazing about them at the lovely room. “My son did that. He built it all himself.”
Carey looked up in surprise, with a flush of pleasure at his father’s tone of pride; and then his eyes came back to the girl’s face all sparkling with eager admiration.
“You don’t mean you did it yourself? How perfectly wonderful! That darling mantel! and the way the chimney curves up to the ceiling! It has charming lines! O father, can’t you coax him to come over and build one for us?”
“Sure! I’ll build you one!” said Carey graciously, as though he kept stone fireplaces in his vest pocket. “Start tomorrow if you can get the stone.”
“Oh, great! Just hear that, father! We’re going to have a fireplace! Now, don’t you let him off. Did you design it, Mr. Copley?”
Carey lifted embarrassed eyes to his elder sister’s face, and met her look of loving pride, and flushed happily.
“Why, no, I guess my sister Nell’s to blame for that. She suggested it first, and worked it out mostly,” he said.
“Indeed, you did it all yourself, Carey,” said Cornelia. “I only wanted it, and Carey did the rest.”
“Yes, Gracie, that’s where you’re lacking,” said the minister, laughingly; “you haven’t any brother to carry out your every wish. Only a busy old father, who doesn’t know how.”
“My father’s all right!” said the daughter loyally; and Carey with a swift, appraising glance decided that hecertainly looked it and that for a minister it certainly was surprising. He had a faint passing wonder what this man’s church might be like. Then they settled down in groups to talk, Carey beside the minister’s daughter, Cornelia beside the minister’s wife, and Mr. Copley with the minister, while Harry and Louise sat down together in the window-seat to watch them all.
“Doesn’t Carey look handsome?” whispered the little girl, with her eyes on her elder brother. “My, but I guess he’s mad he didn’t put on his other shirt.”
“I should say! Serves him right,” said Harry caustically, yet with a light of pride in his eye. “Say, she’s some bird, isn’t she? Better’n that little chicken we saw him have out last Saturday!”
“O Harry! You mustn’t callanygirl a chicken. You know what mother would say.”
“Well, shewasa chicken, wasn’t she?”
“I think I’d rather call her a—a fool!” said Louise expressively.
“Call her what you like, only don’t call her at all!” said the boy. “Say, doesn’t our sister look great though?”
So they sat quietly whispering, picking up bits of the conversation and thinking their wise young thoughts.
Mr. Copley’s face looked rested and happy.
“My! I wish my wife were at home,” he said wistfully. “You know she’s been very sick, and she’s away getting a rest. But we hope she’ll soon be back with us before many months now. How she would enjoy it to have you run in like this! She’s a great church woman,and she felt it, coming away from the church we have always attended over on the other side of the town——”
Then the talk drifted to the little church around the corner, and to its various organizations and activities.
“Father ’ll be after you for the choir,” confided the daughter to Carey; “a good tenor is a great find.”
“No chance!” said Carey, looking pleased in spite of himself. “I can’t sing.”
Then they all began to clamor for Carey to sing; and right in the midst of it there was another knock at the door, and in walked the carpenter and his wife.
Carey began to frown, of course; for, although he liked the carpenter, he felt that he was of another social class from the delicate young girl who sat by his side; but when he saw her rise and greet the carpenter’s wife as cordially as if she were some fine lady, his frown began to disappear again. This certainly was a peach of a girl, and no mistake. In fact, the whole family were all right. The minister was a prince. Just look at the way he took that carpenter by the hand, and made him feel at home.
The carpenter, however, didn’t seem to be troubled by embarrassment. He entered right into the conversation comfortably, and began to praise Cornelia Copley and her ability as an interior decorator; and before any one knew how it happened the company had started to see the dining-room and kitchen.
Nobody realized it, but they were all talking and laughing as if they had known one another for years, and everybody was having a happy time. When they cameback to the living room, they insisted that Carey should sing and Cornelia should play for them. Harry and Louise whispered together for a moment, then slipped silently back to the kitchen while the music was going on, and returned in a few minutes with a tall pitcher of lemonade and a plate of Cornelia’s delicious gingerbread. Carey went for plates, and acted the host beautifully. It all passed off delightfully, even with the presence of the carpenter, who proved to be a good mixer in spite of his lack of grammar.
Before they went away the minister had asked the brother and sister to join the choir and come to the Sunday school and young people’s society and all the various other functions of the church, and had given a special urgent invitation to the whole family, including the callers, to come to a church reception to be held the coming week. Carey acted as if church receptions and young people’s prayer meetings were the joy of his life, and acquiesced in everything that was suggested, declaring, when the door closed behind them, that that girl was “some peach.” And the household retired to their various pillows with happy dreams of a circumspect future in which Carey walked the happy way of a wise young man and had friends that one was not ashamed of. And then the very next afternoon, being Saturday, everything went to smash in one quick happening, and a cloud of gloom fell over the little household.
For it happened that Cornelia and Louise had taken an afternoon off, having arisen quite early and accomplishedan incredible amount of Saturday baking and mending and ironing and the like, and had gone down to the stores to choose a much-needed pair of shoes for Louise. The shoes were purchased, also ten cents’ worth of chocolates; and they were about to finish the joyful occasion by a visit to a moving-picture show when suddenly, walking up Chestnut Street, they came face to face with Carey and a girl! Carey, who was supposed to be off that whole afternoon hunting for a job! Andsucha girl!
The most noticeable thing about the girl was the whiteness of her nose and the rosiness of a certain circumscribed portion of her cheeks. As she drew nearer, one also noticed her cap-like arrangement of hair that was obviously stained henna, and bobbed quite furiously under a dashing hat of jade-green feathers. Her feet were fat, with fat, overhanging flesh-colored silken ankles, quite transparent as to the silk, and were strapped in with many little buckles to a very sharp toe and a tall little stilt of a heel. Her skirt was like one leg of a pantaloon so tight it was and very short, so that the fat, silken ankles became most prominent; and her mincing gait reminded one of a Bach fugue. She wore an objectionable and conspicuous tunic much beaded with short sleeves and very low neck, for the street.
A scrubby little fur flung across the back of her neck completed her costume unless one counted the string of big white beads that hung around her neck to her waist, and the many rings which adorned her otherwise barehands. She was chewing gum rhythmically and industriously, and giggling up into Carey’s face with a silly, sickening grin that made the heart of Cornelia turn sick with disgust.
As she drew nearer, a pair of delicately pencilled stationary eyebrows, higher than nature usually places them, emphasized the whole effect; and the startling red of the girl’s lips seemed to fascinate the gaze. They were coming nearer; they were almost near enough to touch each other; and Carey—Carey was looking down at the girl—he had drawn her arm within his own, and he had not seen his sisters.
Suddenly, without any warning Cornelia felt the angry tears starting to her eyes, and with a quick movement she drew Louise to a milliner’s window they were passing, and stood, trembling in every nerve, while Carey and the girl passed by.