Re-Creations (32 page)

A vague, unnamed apprehension seized her, and her fingers flew fast among the long strands of soft hair, putting them quickly into shape so that she might go down and see what was the matter. Two or three hairpins, which had been in her hand as she hurried to the window, she stuck in anywhere to hold the coils. She hurried to her room, seized her dress, began to slip it on, and flew back to the post of observation at the window. She heard Carey get up and open the door, and she strained to hear what the boy said but could not make out anything but a low mutter. Carey was reading the note. What could it be? Clytie? Oh!

Her heart gave a great leap of terror. It was almost time for Christian Endeavor! But surely,
surely,
Carey would not pay any heed to that girl now. With all the new ambitions and opportunities opening before him!

Carey had made an exclamation and was following the boy rapidly out to the car. Oh! What could he be going to do?

Cornelia fastened the last snap of her dress and fairly flew downstairs, but when she reached the door the car was driving madly off up the hill, and Carey was nowhere in sight. The children were still playing duets and had not noticed.

Cornelia turned back to look into the room again and make sure he was not there, and she saw Carey’s new panama hat hanging on the hook back by the staircase where he had put it when he came in from afternoon service. She drew a breath of relief and called, in a lull of the music, “Louie, where is Carey?”

The little girl turned and looked wonderingly at her sister’s anxious face.

“Why, he was here just a minute ago, Nellie. What’s the matter? I think he went out the front door.”

He was gone! Cornelia knew it, and her heart sank with a horrible sickening thud. She went back to the door and looked down the street and then up the hill, where the car was a mere black speck in the distance. Her heart was beating so that it seemed the children must hear it. She tried to think, but all that came was a wild jumble of ideas. The meeting that night! Carey had a short solo in the anthem! Suppose he shouldn’t get back! What should she say to Grace? How could his absence possibly be explained? He couldn’t—he
wouldn’t
do a thing like that, would he? He had gone without his hat; perhaps he expected to return immediately. She was foolish to get so frightened. Carey had been doing so wonderfully all day. He certainly had sense enough not to make a fool of himself now.

But her heart would not be quieted, and she trembled in every fiber. She hurried down the steps and to the sidewalk looking up the hill where the car had just disappeared, and her hand pressed against her heart to steady its fluttering. She did not see Maxwell’s car drive up until it stopped, and when she looked at him, a new fear seized her: Maxwell must not know that she was afraid about that girl. He had gone to a lot of trouble for Carey, and he would not like it. It might lose Carey the position. She tried to command a smile, but the white face she turned toward him belied it.

“Is anything the matter?” he asked, stopping his car and jumping out beside her. Then he stooped and picked up something from the pavement at her feet.

“Is this yours? Did you drop it?”

She looked down, took the bit of paper, and her face grew whiter still as she caught the words, “Dear Carey.” It must be the note the boy had brought, and suddenly she knew who that boy had been. It was Clytie Dodd’s brother!

Chapter 27

F
or 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—strange. 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 warming with sympathy. “Has she any—ah—
-further
reason 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 Miss Kendall 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’s that
girl
again—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 anymore 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.”

“Oh 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 the silence of the twilight, hand in hand, and put up silent prayers, 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 around the edges of the night. Bells were calling in the distance. A faraway 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 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 fact merited.” She shuddered. She had just drawn her mind back from a fearful abyss 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 odd 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 could see 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, quiet as a mouse all by herself down in a backseat 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 nearby. 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 strange world it was, everything going on just the same, even when one family was crushed to earth with fear!