CHAPTER XXIV
For three long, beautiful weeks Cornelia enjoyed her calm and hope climbed high.
The stone columns of the pretty front porch grew rapidly, and began to take on comeliness. Brand endeared himself to them all by his cheerful, steady, patient aid, coming every afternoon attired in overalls, and working hard till dark, getting his white hands callous and dirty, cut with the stones, and hard as nails. Once Cornelia had to tie an ugly cut he got when a stone fell on his hand; and he looked at her lovingly, and thanked her just like a child. From that time forth she gathered him into her heart with her brothers and sister, and began genuinely to like him and be anxious for his welfare. It seemed that his mother and sister were society people, and made little over him at home. He had his own companions and went his own way without consulting them; and, although he must have had a wonderful mansion of a home, he seemed much to prefer the little cozy house of the Copley’s, and spent many evenings there as well as days. He seemed to be as much interested in getting the stone porch done as Carey himself, and he often worked away alone when Carey felt he must stay at the garage awhile to get money enough for more stone or more cement and sand. Once or twice Cornelia suspected from a few words she gathered, as the boys were arguing outside the window, that Brand had offered to supply the needed fundsrather than have Carey leave to earn them; but she recognized proudly that Carey always declined emphatically such financial assistance.
Now and then Brand would order Carey to “doll up,†and would whirl him away in his car to see a man somewhere with the hope of a position; but as yet nothing had come of these various expeditions, although Carey was always hopeful and kept telling about a new “lead,†as he called it, with the same joyous assurance of youth.
Brand, too, had been drawn into the young people’s choir, and took a sudden interest in Sunday-night church. Once he went with Cornelia, and found the place in the hymn book for her, and sang lustily at her side. The next Sunday he was sitting up in the choir loft beside Carey and acting as if he were one of the chief pillars in that church. It was wonderful how eagerly he grasped a thing that caught his interest. He had a wild, care-free, loving nature, and bubbled over with life and recklessness; but he was easily led if anybody chose to give him a little friendship. It seemed that he led a starved life so far as loving care was concerned, and he accepted eagerly any little favor done for him. Cornelia soon found that he grew pleasantly into the little family group; and even the children accepted and loved him, and often depended upon him.
Arthur Maxwell, too, had become an intimate friend of the family circle, and since Harry had come back from his trip to the mountains he could talk of nothing else but “Mr. Maxwell says this and Mr. Maxwell does that,†tillthe family began gently to poke fun at him about it. Nevertheless, they were well pleased that they had such a friend. He came down one day, and took Cornelia off for the whole afternoon on a wonderful drive in the country. They brought back a great basket of fruit and armfuls of wild flowers and vines. Another day he took her to a nursery where they selected some vines for the front porch, some climbing roses and young hedge-plants, which he proceeded to set out for her on their return. Then next day a big box of chocolates was delivered at the door with his card. But his mother had not been out for her promised visit yet; for she had been called away on a business trip to California the day after she reached home, and had decided to remain with her relatives there for a month or six weeks. Cornelia as she daily beautified her pretty home kept wondering what Mrs. Maxwell would say to it when she did come. But most of all she wondered about her own dear mother, and what she would say to the glorified old house when she got back to it again.
Great news had been coming from the sanitarium where the mother was taking the rest-cure. The nurse said that she grew decidedly better from the day the letter arrived telling how Carey was singing in the church choir and going to Christian Endeavor, and building a front porch. The nurse’s letter did not show that she laid any greater stress on any one of these occupations than on the others, but Cornelia knew that her mother’s heart was rejoicing that the boy had found a place in the church of God where he was interested enough to go to work.In her very next letter she told about the minister’s people, and described Grace Kendall, telling of Carey’s friendship for her. Again the nurse wrote how much good that letter had done the mother, so that she sat up for quite a little while that day without feeling any ill effects from it. Cornelia began to wonder whether Clytie had been at the bottom of some of her mother’s trouble, and to congratulate herself on the fact that Clytie had suffered eclipse at last.
About this time Maxwell arrived one evening while Carey was putting the finishing-touches to the front porch, and instead of coming in as was his custom, he sat down on a pile of floor-boards and talked with Carey.
Cornelia, hearing low, earnest voices, stepped quietly to the window and looked out, wondering to see Maxwell talking so earnestly with her brother. She felt proud that the older young man was interested enough in him to linger and talk, and wondered whether it might be politics or the last baseball score that was absorbing them. Then she heard Maxwell say: “You’ll be there at eight tomorrow morning, will you? He wants to talk with you in his private office before the rush of the day begins.â€
In a moment more Maxwell came into the house, bringing with him a great box of gorgeous roses, and in her joy over the roses, arranging them in vases, she forgot to wonder what Maxwell and her brother had been talking about. He might have told her, perhaps, but they were interrupted almost immediately, much to her disappointment, by callers. First, the carpenter next door ran into say he was building a bungalow in a new suburb for a bride and groom, and the man wanted to furnish the house throughout before he brought his wife home, to surprise her. The bride didn’t know he was building, but thought they would have to board for a while; and he wanted everything pretty and shipshape for her before she came, so they could go right in and begin to live. He didn’t have a lot of money for furnishing, and the carpenter had found out about it, and told him about Cornelia. Would she undertake the job on a percentage basis, taking for selecting the things ten per cent. say, on what they cost, and charging her usual prices for any work she had to do?
Cornelia at the door facing out into the starlight, flushed with pleasure over the new business opportunity, and made arrangements in a happy tone to meet the new householder the next morning, talk plans over with him, and find out what he wanted. The young man in the living room, waiting for her, pretending to turn over the pages of a magazine that lay on the table was furtively watching her the while and thinking how fine she was, how enterprising and successful, and yet how sweet withal! How right his mother had been! He smiled to himself to think how nearly always right his mother was, anyhow, and wondered again, as he had done before, whether his mother had a hidden reason for sending him out with those ferns that first night.
Cornelia returned in a flutter of pleasure, and was scarcely seated when there came another summons to the door; and there stood the minister’s wife. She came inand met Maxwell, and they had a pleasant little chat. Then Mrs. Kendall revealed her errand. She wanted Cornelia to give a series of talks on what she called “The House Beautiful and Convenient†to the Ladies’ Aid Society in the church. She had the course all outlined suggestively, with a place for all the questions that come up in making a house comfortable and attractive; and she wanted Cornelia to keep in mind the thought that many of her auditors would be people in very limited circumstances, with very little money or time or material at hand to use in making their homes lovely. She said there were many people in their church neighborhood who would be attracted by such a course to come to the church gatherings, and she wanted Cornelia to help. The Ladies’ Aid had voted to pay five dollars a lesson for such a course of talks as this, and had instructed her to secure some one for it at once, and she knew of no one so well fitted as Cornelia. Would Cornelia consider it for the trifle they could afford to pay? They were going to charge the women twenty-five cents a lesson, and hoped to make a little money on the enterprise for their Ladies’ Aid. Of course the remuneration was small; but with her experience the work ought not to take much time, and she could have the added reward of knowing she was doing a lot of good and probably brightening a lot of homes. Also it would bring her opportunities for other openings of the sort.
“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.â€
“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.â€
“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 them 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 afterwards, 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.â€
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, nothing loath, 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 casual 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 brotherand 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 mouthfulls of breakfast.
Harry paused in his chewing a second, and eyed him sceptically.
“Yes, you arenot!†he remarked scornfully, and went on chewing again.
But Cornelia, eager-eyed, leaned forward.
“What do you mean, Carey? Is that a fact?â€
“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.
“O 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 hurrieddown the street to the car. Carey was happy. It fairly radiated even from his back, and he walked as if he trod the 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 a comparative 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 any one 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 disgracehimself 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 cheek 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 engaged 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 a 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 keen man. He knew a live family when he saw it; and, when he heard what Cornelia had accomplished in her little home, he was keen to see the brother. He felt that he also might be a genius! Now if Carey could only make good!