CHAPTER XXVII
For a second everything swam before her eyes, and it seemed as though she could not stand up. Maxwell put out his hand in alarm to steady her.
“Hadn’t you better go into the house?” he asked anxiously. “You look ill. Do you feel faint?”
“Oh, I’m all right,” she said almost impatiently. “I’m just worried. Maybe there isn’t anything the matter, but—it looks very—queer. This must be the note the boy brought.”
She began to read the note, which was written in a clear feminine hand on fine note paper:
“Dear Carey, I came out here to see a Sunday-school scholar who is sick, and I am in great trouble. Come to me quick! I’m out at Lamb’s Tavern.
“Grace.”
“I don’t understand it,” faltered Cornelia, looking up at Maxwell helplessly. “She—this! It is signed ‘Grace,’ and looks as if Grace Kendall wrote it. I am sure Carey thought so when he went. But—Grace Kendall was at home only a few minutes ago. She called me up to ask me to bring some music she had left here when I come to church. How could she have got out there so soon?”
Maxwell took the note, and read it with a glance, then turned the paper over, and felt its thickness.
“Curious they should have such stationery at Lamb’s Tavern. Who brought it?”
“A boy. I’m not sure. He looked as if I had seen him before. He might have, been—” she hesitated, and the color stole into her cheeks. The trouble was deep in her eyes. “He might have been a boy who came here on an errand once; I wasn’t certain. I only saw him from the window.”
“You knew him?”
“Why—I had just a suspicion that he might have been that Dodd girl’s brother.” She lifted pained eyes to meet his.
“I see,” he said, his tone kindling with sympathy. “Has she any—ah—furtherreason for revenge than what I know?”
“Yes,” owned Cornelia. “She sent word to Carey to call her up, and he didn’t do it. She had invited him to go on an automobile ride. He didn’t go, and we were all away when they must have stopped for him.”
“I see. Will you call up Miss Kendall on some pretext or other, and find out if she is at her home? Quickly, please.” His tone was grave and kindly, but wholly businesslike and Cornelia, feeling that she had found a strong helper, sped into the house on her trembling feet, giving thanks that the telephone had just been put in last week.
Maxwell stood beside her as she called the number, silently waiting.
“Hello. Is that you, Grace? Was it ‘Oh, eyes that are weary’ that you wanted me to bring? Thank you, yes; I thought so, but I wanted to make sure; good-bye.”
Maxwell had not waited to hear more than that MissKendall was at home. He strode out to his car; and, when Cornelia reached the door, he had his hand on the starter.
“Oh, you mustn’t go alone!” she called. “Let me go with you.”
“Not this time,” he answered grimly. “You go on to church if I’m not back.” He had not waited to finish; the car was moving; but a sturdy flying figure shot out of the door behind Cornelia, over the hedge, and caught on behind. Harry, with little to go by, had sensed what was in the air, and meant to be in at the finish. No, of course not; his adored Maxwell should not go alone to any place where Cornelia said “No” in that tone. He would go along.
Louise, white-faced and quiet, with little hands clasped at her throat, stood just behind her sister, watching the car shoot up the hill and out of sight.
“Sister, you think—it’sthat girlagain—don’t you?” she asked softly, looking with awe at the white-faced girl.
“I’m afraid, Louie; I don’t know!” said Cornelia, turning with a deep, anxious sigh and dropping into a chair.
“Yes, it must be,” said Louise. “And—that was that boy, wasn’t it?—the same one she sent to say she was coming to the party. My! That was poor! She wasn’t very bright to do that, Nellie.”
Cornelia did not answer. She had dropped her face into her hands, and was trembling.
“Nellie, dear!” cried the little sister, kneeling before her and gathering her sister’s head into her young arms. “You mustn’t feel that way. God is taking care of us.He helped us before, you know. And He’s sent Mr. Maxwell. He’s just like an angel, isn’t he? Don’t you know that verse, ‘My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths’. Mother used to read us that story so often when Harry and I were going to sleep. Let’s just kneel down and pray; and pretty soon Carey ’ll come back all right, I shouldn’t wonder. I know he didn’t mean to be away. He promised Grace; and I kind of don’t think he likes that other girl so awfully any more now, do you?”
“No, I think not; but, dear, I’m afraid this is a trick. I’m afraid they mean to keep him away to pay him back.”
“Yes, I know,” said the wise little sister. “I read that note. You dropped it out of your pocket. Grace Kendall never wrote that. It isn’t her writing. She put her name in my birthday book, and she doesn’t make her Gs like that. She makes ’em with a long curl to the handle. They thought they were pretty smart; but Carey and Mr. Maxwell ’ll beat them to it, I’m sure, for they’ve got our God on their side. I’m glad Harry went too. Harry’s got a lot of sense; and, if anything happens, Harry can run back and tell.”
“O darling!” Cornelia clung to the little girl.
“Well, it might—” said the child. “I’m glad father isn’t here. I hope it’s all over before he gets back. Was he coming back before church?” Cornelia shook her head.
“He’s going to stay with Mr. Baker while his wife goes to church.”
“Then let’s pray now, Nellie.”
They knelt together beside the big gray chair in thesilence of the twilight, hand in hand, and put up silent petitions; and then they got up and went to the window.
The city had that gentle, haloed look of a chastened child in the afterglow of the sunset; and soft violets and purples were twisting in misty wreaths about the edges of the night. Bells were calling in the distance. A far-away chime could just be heard in tender waves that almost obliterated the melody. The Sabbath hush was in the sky, broken now and again by harsh, rasping voices and laughter as a car sped by on the way home from some pleasure trip. Something hallowed seemed to linger above the little house, and all about was a sweet quiet. The neighbors had for the moment hushed their chatter. Now and again a far-distant twang of a cheap victrola broke out and died away, and then the silence would close around them again. The two sat waiting breathlessly on the pretty front porch that Carey had made, for Carey to come home. But Carey did not come.
By and by the sound of singing young voices came distinctly to their ears. It seemed to beat against their hearts and hurt them.
“Nellie, you’ll have to go pretty soon. It’ll be so hard to explain, you know. And, besides, he might somehow be there. Carey wouldn’t stop for a hat. I almost think he’s there myself.” Louise sounded quite grown up.
“Of course, he might,” said Cornelia thoughtfully. “There’s always a possibility that we have made a great deal more out of this than the facts merited.” She shuddered. She had just drawn her mind back from a fearfulabyss of possibilities, and it was hard to get into everyday untragic thought.
“I think we better go, Nellie,” said the little girl rising. “Christian ’deavor ’ll be most out before we can get there now, and she’ll think it queer if we don’t come, after she gave us both those verses to read. You won’t like to tell her you were just sitting here on the front porch, doing nothing, because you thought Carey had gone to Lamb’s Tavern after her! I think we’d better go. We prayed, and we better trust God and go.”
“Perhaps you’re right, dearie,” said Cornelia, rising reluctantly and giving a wistful glance up the hill into the darkness.
They got ready hurriedly, put the key into its hiding-place, and went. Cornelia wrote a little note, and as soon as they got there sent it up with the music to Grace, who was at the piano. It said:
“Dear Grace, Carey was called away for a few minutes, and he must have been detained longer than he expected. Don’t worry; I’m sure he will do everything in his power to get back in time.”
Grace read the note, nodded brightly to the Copleys at the back of the room, and seemed not at all concerned. Cornelia, glad of the shelter of a secluded seat under the gallery, bent her head, and prayed continually. Little Louise, bright-eyed, with glowing cheeks, sat alertly up, and watched the door; but no Carey came.
They slipped out into the darkness after the meeting was out, and walked around the corner where they couldsee their own house; but it seemed silent and dark as they had left it, and they turned sadly back and went into the church.
The choir had gathered when Cornelia got back, and she slipped into the last vacant seat by the stairs, and was glad that it was almost hidden from the view of the congregation. It seemed to her that the anxiety of her heart must be written large across her face.
Louise, still as a mouse all by herself down in a back seat by the door, watched—and prayed. No one came in at the two big doors that she did not see. Maxwell and Harry had not come back yet. The cool evening air came in at the open window, and blew the little feather in the pretty hat Cornelia had made for her. She felt a strand of her own hair moving against her cheek. There was honeysuckle outside somewhere on somebody’s front porch across the street or in the little park near by. The breath of it was very sweet, but Louise thought she never as long as she lived, even if that were a great many years, would smell the breath of honeysuckle without thinking of this night. And yet the sounds outside were just like the sounds on any other Sunday night; the music and the lights in the church were the same; the people looked just as if nothing were the matter, and Carey had not come! What a queer world it was, everything going on just the same, even when one family was crushed to earth with fear!
Automobiles flew by the church; now and then one stopped. Louise wished she were tall so she could lookout and see whether they had come. Her little heart was beating wildly; but there was a serene, peaceful expression on her face. She had resolved to trust God, and she knew He was going to do something about it somehow. But people kept coming in at the door, and hope would dim again.
The service had begun, and in the silence of the opening prayer the two sisters lifted their hearts in tragic petition. Their spirits seemed to cling to each word and make it linger; their souls entered into the song that followed, and sang as if their earnest singing would hold off the moment for a little longer.
Cornelia was glad that her seat was so placed that she could not see all the choir. She had given a swift survey as she sat down, and she knew her brother was not there. Now she sat in heaviness of heart, and tried to fathom it all!—tried to think what to do next, what to tell her father, whether to tell her father at all; tried not to think of the letter she would not write the next day to her mother; tried just to hold her spirit steady, steady, trusting, not hoping, but trusting, right through the prayer, the song, the Bible reading. Now and again a frightful thought of danger shot through her heart, and a wonder about Maxwell. Lamb’s Tavern—what kind of a place was it? The very name “Tavern” sounded questionable. And Harry! He ought not to have gone, of course, but she had not seen him in time to stop him. Brave, dear Harry! A man already. And yet he knew he ought not to go! But the man in him had to. She understood.
Suddenly she found a tear stealing slowly down her cheek, and she sat up very straight, and casually slid a finger up to its source, and stopped it. This must not happen again. No one must know her trouble. How wonderful it was that she should have been able to get this little sheltered spot, the only spot in the whole choir loft that was absolutely out of sight, by the winding stairs down into the choir room behind! She would not be seen until she had to stand up with the rest of the choir to sing; and then she would step in behind the rest, and be out of sight again. She wondered what Grace would do about Carey’s solo, and decided that she had probably asked some one else to take it. She cast a quick glance over the group of tenors, but she did not know any of them well enough to be sure whether there was a soloist present. She had been at only two rehearsals so far, and was not acquainted with them all yet. She was not afraid that the music would go wrong, for she had great faith that Grace at the organ would easily be able to fill the vacancy in some way; she only felt the deep mortification that Carey the first time he had been asked to sing in this notably conspicuous way had failed her, and for such a reason! It was terrible, and it was perplexing. It was not like Carey to be fooled by a note. And didn’t Carey know that little Dodd boy? If he had been going to the Dodd house at all, wouldn’t he know the brother? Why didn’t he see through the trick? He was quick as a flash. He was not dumb and slow like some people.
The contralto solo had begun. It was a sweet andtender thing, with low, deep tones like a ’cello; but they beat upon the tired girl’s heart, and threatened to break down her studied composure. A hymn followed, and the reading of another Bible selection. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” She felt as if all the iniquity of her brother Carey were laid upon her heart, and a dim wonder came to her whether the Lord was bearing a like burden for her. She had never felt much sense of personal sin herself before. The thought lingered through the pain, and wound in and out through her tired brain during the offertory and prayer that followed; and at last came the anthem. The opening chords were sounding. The choir was rising. She stumbled to her feet, and for the first time saw the audience before her, this congregation that was to have heard Carey sing his tenor solo. It was a goodly audience, for Mr. Kendall touched the popular heart, and drew people out at night as well as in the morning; and she felt anew the pang of disappointment. She glanced swiftly over the lifted faces and saw little Louise, white and shrinking, sitting by herself, and saw beyond her, at the open door, two figures just entering, Maxwell and Harry, looking a trifle white and hurried, and glancing anxiously around the audience. Then she opened her mouth and tried to sing, to do her little part among the sopranos in the chorus; but no sound seemed to come. All she could think of now was, “Carey is not here!” beating over and over like a refrain in her brain: “Carey has not come! Carey has not come!”