CHAPTER XXIII
That awful girl!
Cornelia shut the door, and dropped weakly into a chair. Her punishment was come upon her. She might have known she ought not to meddle with a girl like that, inviting her to the house and making her feel free there, setting the seal of family friendship on an intimacy that never ought to have been between her and the son of the house.
And now what should she do? Should she conceal the message and try to get Carey to go somewhere else with her? Or should she tell him the truth, and let him choose his own way? She knew beforehand that any kind of remonstrance from her would be vain. Carey was at the age when he liked to feel that he owned himself and took no advice from anybody unless he asked for it. She was enough of a stranger to him yet to realize that she must go slowly and carefully. It is a pity that we cannot more of us keep the polite relation of comparative strangers with our own family; it might tend to better things. It is strange that we do not realize this. The fact is, the best-meaning of us often antagonize the ones we love, and send them swiftly toward the very thing we are trying to keep them from doing. The wisdom of serpents and the harmlessness of doves are often forgotten in our scheme of living, and loving considerationof one another is a thing far too rare in even Christian homes today.
Cornelia’s honest nature always inclined to telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. She would have liked to go to her brother and give the message straight, knowing that he would decline it; but the fact was, she was not at all sure of him. Clytie’s manner implied that this sort of thing had been habitual amusement with him. And Cornelia was not at all sure that Clytie’s behavior on the night of the party had made any deep impression against her. Carey was young, and liked fun. These young people were ready to show him a good time, and what boy of his age could resist that? If she only knew of some way of getting up a counter-attraction! But what would a mild little fudge party or a walk to the park be beside the hilarity offered by Clytie’s program.
Moreover, even if she succeeded in getting Carey away from the house before the wild crowd arrived, Clytie would be sure to tell him afterwards, and he would blame the sister for not giving the message. She was sure he would do that even if he did not intend to go. And there was Brand! He was invited, too. Of course Carey would go if Brand did. She wildly reviewed the idea of taking Brand into her confidence, and rejected it as not only useless, but a thing that would be regarded by Carey as a disloyalty to himself. Her perplexity deepened. Then she suddenly remembered her new source of help, and, slipping to her knees beside the big chair in which she had been sitting, she prayed about it.
An outsider would think it a strange coincidence, perhaps. It did not seem so to the weary, perplexed sister that even while she knelt and poured out her worries to her heavenly Father the answer to her prayer should be on the very door-step. She rose as the bell pealed through the house once more, and, opening the door, found Grace Kendall standing there. She seemed like an angel from heaven, and Cornelia almost wondered whether she shouldn’t tell her troubles to this new friend.
“I’ve come to ask a favor,” Grace said eagerly. “And you’re to promise first that you will tell me truly if there is any reason why it isn’t convenient to grant it. Now do you promise?”
Cornelia laughingly promised, but before the request was made she heard Carey’s step at the side door, and a shadow of anxiety came into her eyes. Carey, not knowing of their visitor, came straight into the living room in search of his sister.
“I couldn’t get any more cement tonight. Isn’t that a shame?” he said before he saw their guest, and then came forward, half abashed to greet her, apologizing for his rough working garb.
“Please don’t apologize,” said Grace eagerly. “You look fine. You couldn’t work in evening clothes, could you? And wait till you hear what I’ve come to beg you to do. Are you awfully busy this evening, both of you?”
“Not a thing in the world to do,” said Carey eagerly. “I’m at your service. What can I do for you? Anything but sing. I really can’t sing well enough to go into a choir.”
“Well, I don’t want you to sing tonight,” said Grace, laughing. “Guess again. Now you’resureyou haven’t any engagement?”
“No, indeed, honor bright,” he declared smiling.
“Well, then I’m going to beg you to do a big favor. You see father is asked to speak over at Glen Avon tonight and he has just discovered that they only have two trains a day, and the evening train will get him there too late for the meeting; so he had to hurry around and try to get some one to take him in a car. We have found the car. It belongs to Mr. Williams, and he is just eager to lend it; but he can’t drive it himself, because he has to go to New York at five o’clock. He’s rather particular about who drives it, and he said, if we could get a good, reliable driver, we were welcome to it. Father knew that you were used to cars; he’s watched you driving Mr. Barlock’s car sometimes, and he wondered if you would be willing to go and drive us. The car is a great big, roomy one, and we can take as many along as want to go; and I thought perhaps you and the children would like to go too.” She turned to Cornelia and then back to Carey. “You’re quite sure there isn’t any reason at all why it isn’t convenient for you?”
“Perfectly,” said Carey with shining eyes; “I’d rather drive than eat any day in the week. And it will be a dandy trip. The roads over there are like velvet. There’s going to be a moon tonight, too! Gee! I’m glad you asked me. When do we start?”
“Why, father has to be there by eight. How long doyou think it will take? We must not run any risk of being late. It is some kind of a convention and father has charge of the hour from eight to nine. We won’t have to stay late, you know, and we can ride a while afterward if we like.”
“Great!” said Carey. “I’ll bring you home by the way of the river. It’ll be peachy that way tonight. Say! This is wonderful! I think we ought to start by half past six or quarter to seven. Cornie can you get through dinner by six thirty? That would be safer.”
“Oh, surely,” said Cornelia eagerly. “We’ll have the dinner on the table the minute father gets in, five minutes to six; and we’ll just stack the dishes and run. Won’t it be delightful?”
Then suddenly the thought of Clytie Dodd and her party came back with a twinge of horror. Ought she to tell Carey at once?
Grace Kendall was hurrying away with many thanks and happy exclamations of how glad she was she had made up her mind to come. She could not tell it before Grace, anyway, although perhaps Carey would have thought she ought.
“What’s the matter, Nell?” asked her brother as he came in and shut the door. “Don’t you want to go? I should think it would be a good rest for you.”
“Oh, yes, indeed! I want to go, of course; but I just remembered. Perhaps I should have told you before you promised. Clytie Dodd was here—”
“What?” he looked angry and disgusted.
“She wanted you to go to some ride and dance tonight and get Brand to go too. She wants you to call her up at once.”
“Aw! Forget it! She’s always got something on the brain. Call her up. I shan’t call her up. She’s a little fool, anyway.”
He looked half ashamed as he said it. He was perfectly aware that his sister must have seen him all dressed up taking her to a moving-picture show several weeks ago.
“But—they’re going to stop here for you at half past seven.”
“Well, let ’em stop! We’ll be gone, won’t we? She’ll have her trouble for her pains, won’t she?” He really was speaking in a very rude tone to his sister; but she could see that he was annoyed and mortified to have to talk with her at all on this subject, and the things he said filled her with a triumphant elation.
“But, Carey, oughtn’t you to call her up and tell her you have another engagement? Isn’t that the right thing, the manly thing, to do?”
“Oh, bother! You don’t understand! Letmemanage this, please. I guess I know my own business. I tell you she’s a—fool!”
Carey slammed upstairs to his room, and she could hear him presently in the bathroom stropping his razor, and whistling a merry tune. He had forgotten all about Clytie. Cornelia’s hand trembled as she slipped the hot apple pie out of the oven, and dusted it with powderedsugar. Then she suddenly straightened up, and said out loud, “He answered!”
For a moment the little white kitchen seemed a holy place, as if a presence unseen were there; and her whole being was thrilled with the wonder of it. God, the great God, had listened to her troubled cry and sent His angel in the form of the minister’s daughter, who had averted the danger. Other people might doubt and sneer at supposed answers to prayer if they knew the circumstances, perhaps call it a coincidence, or a “chance,” or a “happening”; but sheknew! There was something more than just the fact that the trouble had been averted. There was that strange spiritual consciousness of God answering her, God coming near and communicating with her, as if their eyes had met across the universe, and He had made her certain of His existence, certain of His interest in her and care for her and her affairs.
It was a little thing, an intangible thing; but it glorified her whole life, the day, the moment, and her work. It was real, and something she could never forget. She went swiftly about the last details of the evening meal, had everything on the table absolutely on time, even found a moment to run up to her room, smooth her hair, and put on a fresh blouse. Yet through it all, and on through the beautiful evening, it kept ringing back sweetly in her heart. She had a refuge when things grew too hard for her, a God who cared, and would help in time of need. She had not thought that faith was given like that, but it had come and made a different thing entirely of living.
They had a wonderful drive, Grace sitting in the front seat with Carey, and carrying on a merry conversation, his father and the minister in the back seat, with Louise and Cornelia in the two little middle seats. For the minister had insisted on the whole family going. So for the first time since Cornelia’s return from college the little house was shut up and dark through the whole evening, and now and again Cornelia’s thoughts would turn back and wonder what Clytie thought when she arrived with her gang of pleasure-seekers.
But the evening was so wonderful, the moonlight so perfect, the company so congenial, that Cornelia found it hard to harbor unpleasant thoughts, and for one evening was care-free and happy. Now and then she thought of her little brother riding afar with young Maxwell, and wondered what they were talking about, and whether they would all know him any better when he got back with Harry. It was always so revealing to have a member of one’s family get really close to everyday living with a person. Then her thoughts would come back to the drifting talk from Grace and Carey in front, and she thought how handsome her brother looked, and how at ease driving the car and talking to this sweet, cultured girl. She remembered his accents when he called Clytie Dodd a fool so vehemently, and compared them with his face as he walked on Chestnut Street, chewing gum, and looking down attentively to his overdressed, ill-behaved companion. Which was the real Carey? And do we all havetwo people shut up inside ourselves? Or is one the real self and the other a mask?
The service which they attended for an hour was intensely interesting, and quite new to Cornelia. She had never seen anything like it before. It was a “conference.” Nobody said for what, and she did not happen to get hold of a program until they were leaving. Mr. Kendall at the desk seemed like a father among his children, or a close friend of them all; and he led their thoughts to the heavenly Father in a most wonderful way, speaking of Him as if He were present always with each one, ready to help in any need, ready to conquer for them; and the thought he left with them at the close of his ten-minute talk was drawn from the verse, “My grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Cornelia listened in wonder, and instantly to her mind sprang once more her own experience of the afternoon and a conviction that she was being watched and guarded and led andlovedby an unseen Power. This sense of God had never come to her before. Religion had been a dreamy, mysterious necessity, the wholly respectable and conventional thing to believe in, of course, and a kind of comfortable assurance for the darkness of the beyond. She had never had any particular tendency to the modern doubts. Her mother’s faith and her father’s living had been too real for that; and always, when a teacher had voiced some sceptical flippancy, she had turned away with an inner conviction that the teacher did not know, because there was her mother; and a feeling that she preferred tostick to the faith of her fathers. But as far as concerned any particular reason for doing so, or any particular conviction on her own part, she was absolutely without them.
But now suddenly she saw and felt something that had never come to her realization before. She felt as firmly assured of all the vital truths she had been taught as if some mystic curtain had suddenly been rolled back and revealed to her things hidden from mortal eye. She remembered somewhere in the Bible there was a verse, one of her mother’s favorites, “He that believeth hath the witness in himself.” Was this possibly what it meant? Was “the witness” coming to her because she had put her childhood belief to the test?
She came out of the church with a firm resolve to begin to study her Bible and find out more about this wonderful spirit world that was all about her, and by which perhaps she was guided through her life much more than she had ever dreamed. Her feeling that God was somewhere close and taking personal notice of her and her interests was so strong that she could not ignore it, and yet she regarded it almost shyly, like a bird that has quietly alighted on one’s hand and might be frightened away. She did not dare to touch it and lay hold on its wonder firmly lest it should prove to be a figment of her imagination; but it gave her a deep, new joy for which she found no name. Could it be that she had found Christ? She had heard her mother speak of “finding Christ,” and had never had much idea of what it could be. Now a deep conviction grew in her that she was experiencing it herself.
The ride home was one of wonderous beauty, and there was a serene happiness in each heart that made it seem a most unusual occasion, one to look back upon with a thrill of pleasure for many a day. Even Louise seemed to feel it. She nestled close to her sister, and watched with wide, happy eyes the fleeting starry darkness, and drew long breaths of spring and ferny sweetness as they passed through some wooded road, and every little while would whisper: “Aren’t we having just a wonderful time, Nellie, dear? I wonder if it’s as pretty where Harry is now. I wonder if they’ve stopped for the night yet.”
The minister and Mr. Copley were on the two middle seats now, having a deep discussion about whether the world was growing better or worse, and Cornelia was on the back seat with her little sister. The evening seemed like an oasis in the great desert of hard work and worry through which she had been passing for the last few weeks. Just to see Carey there in the front seat talking and smiling to Grace was enough to rest her heart. If she could have heard the earnest little talk about real Christian living they were having, she would have been filled with wonder and awe. Carey talking religion with a young girl! How unbelievable it would have seemed to her! But the purr of the engine sheltered the quiet sentences; and Grace and Carey talked on deep into the heart of life and the simplicity of the gospel, and Carey expressed shy thoughts that he never would have dreamed before of letting even the angels of heaven guess. His living hadn’t always been in accordance with such thoughts orbeliefs; but they were there all the time, and this girl, who was a real Christian herself, had called them forth. Perhaps the spirit of the remarkable meeting which they had just attended had helped to make it a fitting time and prepare their minds so that it came about quite naturally. Grace was no insistent evangelist, flinging her message out and demanding an answer. She breathed the fragrance of Christianity in her smile, and her words came involuntarily from a heart that thought much “on these things.”
The immediate result of the talk became apparent as they were getting out of the car at the minister’s house. Carey was to drive his own people on to their home, and then put the car in its garage, two blocks farther up the hill.
As Grace turned to say, “Good night,” Carey leaned out and asked, “What time did you say that Christian Endeavor met?”
“Oh, yes, seven o’clock!” said the girl eagerly, not at all as if it were a doubtful question whether the young man would come or not. “And don’t forget the choir rehearsal. That is Friday evening at our house, you know.”
“I’ll be there!” said Carey graciously.
Cornelia, too astonished for words that Carey was arranging for all these church functions, easily yielded to the request; and they parted for the night, the sister with a singing in her heart that her brother was getting to be friends with a girl like the minister’s daughter. Now surely, surely he would stop going with girls like ClytieDodd. Probably that girl would be offended at the way she had been left without even an apology, and would drop Carey now. She sat back with a sigh of relief, and dismissed this one burden from her young heart. Could she have known what plots were at that very moment revolving in the vengeful girl’s mind, and being suggested to her hilarious and willing group of companions amid shouts of laughter, she would not have rested her soul so easily, nor enjoyed the wonderful moonlight that glorified even the mean little street where she lived. The devil is not idle when angels throng most around, and Cornelia had yet to learn that a single victory is not a whole battle won. But perhaps, if she had known she would not have had the courage and faith to go forward; and it is well that the step ahead is always just out of sight.