CHAPTER XXIX
It was very still in the church as the opening chords of the anthem were struck. The anthems were always appreciated by the congregation. Since Grace Kendall had been organist and choir master there was always something new and pleasing, and no one knew beforehand just who might be going to sing a solo that day. Sometimes Grace Kendall herself sang, although but rarely. People loved to hear her sing. Her voice was sweet and well cultivated, and she seemed to have the power of getting her words across to one’s soul which few others possessed.
Cornelia, as her lips formed the words of the opening chorus, wondered idly, almost apathetically, whether Grace would take the tenor solo this time. She could, of course; but Cornelia dreaded it like a blow that was coming swiftly to her. It seemed the knell of her brother’s self-respect. He had failed her right at the start, and of course no one would ever ask him to sing again; and equally of course he would be ashamed, and never want to go to that church again. Her heart was so heavy that she had no sense of the triumph and beauty of the chorus as it burst forth in the fresh young voices about her, voices that were not heavy like her own with a sense of agony and defeat.
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord.”
It was, of course, a big thing for an amateur volunteerchoir to attempt, but in its way it was well done. Grace Kendall seemed to have a natural feeling for expression, and she had developed a wonderful talent for bringing out some voices and suppressing others. Moreover, she trained for weeks on a composition before she was willing to produce it. This particular one had been in waiting some time until a tenor soloist fit for the part should be available. Carey had seemed to fit right in. Grace had told Cornelia this the night before, which made the humiliation all the harder now. Cornelia’s voice stopped entirely on “the beginning,” and never got to “the ending” at all. Something seemed to shut right up in her throat and make sound impossible. She wished she could sink down through the floor, and hide away out of sight somewhere. Of course the audience did not know that her brother was to have sung in this particular anthem; but all the choir knew it, and they must be wondering. Surely they had noticed his absence. She was thankful that her seat kept her a trifle apart from the rest, and that she was a comparative stranger, so that no one would be likely to ask where he was. If she could only get through this anthem somehow, making her lips move till the end, and sit down! The church seemed stifling. The breath of the roses about the pulpit came sickeningly sweet.
It was almost time for the solo. Another page, another line! At least she would not look around. If anybody noticed her, he should think she knew all about what was going to happen next. They would perhaps think that Carey had been called away—as, indeed, he had; shecaught at the words “called away”; that was what she would have to say when they asked her after service, called away suddenly. Oh! And such a calling! Would Grace ever speak to him again? Would they be able to keep it from her that that detestable Clytie had been at the bottom of it all? It wouldn’t be so bad if Grace had never met her. Oh, why had Cornelia been so crazy as to invite them together? Now!Now! Another note!
Into the silence of the climax of the chorus there came a clear, sweet tenor voice, just behind Cornelia, so close it startled her, and almost made her lose her self-control, so sweet and resonant and full of feeling that at first she hardly recognized that she had ever heard it before.
“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts!”
“Carey!”
Her trembling senses took it in with thrill after thrill of wonder and delight. It was really Carey, her brother, singing like that! Carey, standing on the top step of the little stairway winding up from the choir room, close beside the organ. Carey with his hair rumpled wildly, his coat-sleeve half ripped out, a tear in the knee of his trousers, a white face with long black streaks across it, a cut on his chin, and his eyes blue-black with the intensity of the moment, but a smile like a cherub’s on his lips. He was singing as he had never sung before, as no one knew he could sing, as he had not thought he could sing himself, singing as one who had come “out of great tribulation,” as the choir had just sung a moment before, a triumphant, tender, marvellous strain.
“Gee!” breathed Harry back by the door, in awe, under his breath, and the soul of Maxwell was lifted and thrilled by the song. Little Louise in her seat all alone gripped her small hands in ecstasy, and smiled till the tears came; and the father, who had found his friend too ill for his wife to leave him, and had stolen into church late by the side door and sat down under the gallery, bowed his head and prayed, his heart filled with one longing, that the boy’s mother could have heard him.
Into Cornelia’s heart there flooded a tide of strength and joy surpassing anything she had ever known in pride of herself. Her brother,her brotherwas singing like that! He had overcome all obstacles, whatever they might have been, and got there in time! He was there! He had not failed! He was singing like a great singer.
Out at the curbstone beside the church sat huddled in a “borrowed” car, with a broken wind-shield, borrowed without the knowledge of the owner, three girls, frightened, furious, and overwhelmed with wonder. All during that stormy drive to the city they had screamed and reasoned and pommelled their captor in vain. He had paid no more heed to their furor than if they had been three gadflies sitting behind him. When one of them tried to climb into the front seat beside him, he swept her back with one blind motion and a threat to throw them all out into the road if they didn’t stop. They had never seen him like this. They subsided, and he had sat silent, immovable, driving like Jehu, until with a jerk he suddenly brought up at the church, and sprang out, vanishing into the darkness.And now this voice, this wonderful voice, piercing out into the night like the searching of God.
“Holy, holy, holy!” They listened awesomely. This was not the young man they knew, with whom they had rollicked and feasted and revelled. This was a new man. And this—this that he was voicing made them afraid. Holy, holy! It was a word that they hated. It seemed to search into their ways from the beginning. It made them aware of their coarseness and their vulgarity. It brought to their minds things that made their cheeks burn, and made them think of their mothers and retribution. It reminded them of the borrowed car, and the fact that they were alone in it, and that even now some one might be out in search of it.
“Holy, holy!” sang the voice, “Lord God of Hosts!” and, as if a searchlight from heaven had been turned upon their silly, weak young faces, they trembled, and one by one clambered out into the shadow silently, and slunk away on their little clinking high heels, hurriedly, almost stumbling. They were running away from that voice and from that word, “Holy, holy, holy!” They were gone, and the borrowed car stood there alone. Stood there when the people filed out from the church, still talking about the wonderful new tenor that “Miss Grace” had found; stood there when the janitor locked the door and turned out the lights and went home. Stood there all night silently, with a hovering watchman in the shadows waiting for some one to come; stood there till morning, when it was reported and taken back to its owner with a handkerchiefand a cigarette and a package of chewing gum on its floor to help along the evidence against the two young prisoners who had been brought to the station-house the night before.
But the young man who had driven the car from the cross-roads, 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.
Some one 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 which had been bleeding profusely. Carey’s shoe was soaked with blood. Carey, coming to, was much mortified over his collapse, looked up nervily, 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 roughswho 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 in her little niche at the head of the stairs, unable to get out till the crowd had passed. Every one 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 musthave 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 which 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 oughtta 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.
“O 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 cross-roads, 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 jack-knife 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 listeningin 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 back seat.”
“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 a wry face at the pain his move had cost him. “I’m not in it any more, am I?”
“But the girls!” said Harry again. “D’you s’pose they’re in it yet?”
“Don’t you 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 had 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 forgottenin 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 oughtta 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, Hedidanswer, 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 which 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.
“Butthe 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 wantyou 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 thrash 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, Iknowshe isn’t!”
Louise falling cosily to sleep while her sister arranged her hair for the night said to herself sleepily:
“I wonder now,howshe knows! She didn’t seem so sure yesterday. He must have told her about her out on the porch.”