Re-Creations (22 page)

Brand Barlock stared. First at Cornelia, swiftly, approvingly, and with an answering smile for her cordial one; then at the lovely room that he entered, and gave a swift, comprehensive survey; and then at the lovely girl in blue who came forward to greet him.

“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure!” he said giving her a direct appraisement, a respectful interest, and shaking her hand quite unnecessarily. He was entirely at ease and altogether accustomed to rapid adjustments to environment, one could see that at once, yet it was also perceptible that he was surprised, and agreeably so. He held Grace Kendall’s slim young hand impressively, a trifle longer than was in keeping with polite usage, yet not long enough to be resented; and his eyes made several sentences’ progress in acquaintance with her before he took them from her face and let them rest upon Miss Dodd, who had at last risen with some show of interest in life again and come a step or two forward. Then he stared again.

“Oh! Hello, Clytie! You here?” he greeted her carelessly and went and sat down beside Miss Kendall. His tone said that Clytie Dodd was decidedly out of her element, and suddenly under the heavy veneer of white Clytie Dodd grew deeply red. Cornelia with a glance took in all these things, and a wave of sudden compassion swept over her, too, for the girl whom she had thus placed in a trying position. Had she done well? She could not tell. But it was too late now. She must go forward and make it a success. She tried to make it up by smiling at the girl pleasantly.

“Now, if you will just talk a minute or two, I think Carey will be down soon. It is time for Father’s car to come, and we’ll have dinner at once.” Cornelia disappeared through the dining room door again.

Just at that precise moment Arthur Maxwell slowed up his car at the corner where Mr. Copley’s trolley was about to stop and looked perplexedly about him, studying the houses on either side.

“I beg your pardon,” he said politely, as Mr. Copley got out of the trolley and crossed the street in front of him. “Could you tell me if there is a family by the name of Copley about here? I seem to have mislaid the address, but my memory of it is that they live somewhere along this block or the next.”

“Copley’s my name, sir,” said Mr. Copley with his genial smile. “What can I do for you?”

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Copley,” said Maxwell cordially. “I’ve had no end of a time finding your house. Thought I could go directly to it but find my memory wasn’t so good as I banked on. I must have left the address at home, after all. I’ve a box there to deliver to your daughter. You have a daughter, haven’t you?”

“Why, yes, two of them,” said the father, smiling. He liked this pleasant young man with the handsome smile and the expensive car asking after his daughter. This was his idea of the kind of friends he would like his daughters to have if he had the choosing. “I guess you mean Cornelia. I suppose you’re somebody she met at college.”

“No, nothing so good as that. I can’t really claim anything but a secondhand acquaintance. It was my mother who met her on a journey to Philadelphia some months ago. Mother quite fell in love with her, I believe, and she’s sent her some ferns, which she asked me to deliver. Suppose you get in, and I’ll take you the rest of the way. It is in this block?”

Mr. Copley swung his long limbs into the seat beside the young man. “No, the next block, middle of the block, just at the top of the hill right-hand side,” he said. “I remember Cornie speaking of your mother. She was very kind, and Cornie enjoyed her. It certainly is good of her to remember my little girl. Ferns!” He looked back at the box. “She certainly will like those. She’s a great one for fixing up the house and putting flowers about and growing things. She’ll be pleased to see you. Here’s the house, the one with the stone chimney. Yes, that’s new, my son built it since Cornie came home. She wanted a fireplace. Now, you’ll come right in. Cornie’ll want to thank you.”

“Thank you,” said the young man, lifting out the heavy box. “That won’t be necessary. She can thank Mother sometime when she sees her. I’ll just put the box here on the porch, shall I?—and not detain your daughter. I really ought to be getting along. I haven’t had my dinner yet.”

“Oh, then you’ll come right in and take dinner with us. The young people will be delighted to have you, I know. Cornie said they were going to have a company supper tonight because it’s my son’s birthday, twenty-one. I’d like you to meet my son, that is, I’d like him to know you, you know.” And the father smiled a confiding smile.

“Oh, but really,” Arthur Maxwell began.

But Mr. Copley had a detaining hand upon the young man’s arm.

“We couldn’t really let you go this way, you know,” said the father. “We couldn’t think of it. We haven’t any very grand hospitality to offer you, but we can’t let you go away without being thanked. Cornie!”

Mr. Copley threw wide the door of the living room. “Cornie, here’s Mr. Maxwell. He’s brought you some ferns, and he’s going to stay to dinner with us. Put on another plate.”

It was just at this instant that Carey Copley, humming his jazzy tune and fumbling with a refractory cuff link, started down the front stairs and paused in wild dismay.

Chapter 18

C
ornelia, alert to make everything pass off smoothly and aware that Carey was coming down the stairs, had slipped off her apron and entered the living room exactly as her father flung open the front door. Now she came forward easily, brightly, as if strange guests flung at her feast at the last moment were a common occurrence in her life, and greeted this tall, handsome stranger.

“The plate’s all on,” she answered cheerfully, putting out a welcoming hand and meeting a pair of very nice, very curious, wholly interested eyes that for the moment she wasn’t aware of ever having seen before. She was aware only of the eight plates back in the oven keeping piping hot, and the eight places at the pretty table, and the awful thing that her father had done to her already-incongruous party, and wondering what she should do. Then suddenly she recognized the young man, and a pretty color flew into her cheeks and brightness into her eyes. The room with its strange guests—Grace Kendall trying to interest Brand and Clytie in her lapful of photographs, Carey standing on the stair landing, even her young brother and sister peeping curiously in at the dining room door—fell away, and she put out her hand in real welcome to this stranger. An instant more, and her pulses swept wildly back into frightened array again, and her thoughts bustled around with troubles and fears. What should she do now? How would he ever mix? That awful girl with her face all flour? That noisy Brand with his slang and bold indifference! How could she ever make the party a success, the party over which she had so worked and prayed and hoped? And Carey! Would he vanish out the back door? The birthday candles around the cake were all lit. Harry had lit them as she came in. If Carey should bolt, how could they ever go out into the dining room, into the flicker of those foolish pink candles, and have a birthday dinner without the chief guest?

“Oh, but indeed, I couldn’t think of intruding,” the young man’s words interrupted her anxious thoughts. “I merely dropped in on my way to dinner to leave this box of ferns that my mother sent with very explicit directions to be delivered to you at once before they died. As I’m not much of a florist myself, and as they have already had to wait all day without water, I’m ashamed to say, I wouldn’t answer for the consequences if I hadn’t got them here tonight. Mother is very particular about having her directions carried out. I hope the ferns will live and be worthy of this most beautiful setting.” His glance went appreciatively around the pretty room. “You certainly look cozy here, and I know you’re going to have a beautiful time. I won’t keep you a minute longer.”

There was something wistful in his tone even as he lifted his hat to put it on and began backing out the door. Cornelia’s resolve to let him go was fast weakening even before her father spoke up.

“Daughter, Mr. Maxwell has come four miles out of his way to bring those ferns, and it will be late before he gets any dinner. He ought to stay. I told him he was welcome.”

Cornelia’s cheeks flamed, but a smile came into her eyes.

“We shall be
very
glad to have you stay,” she urged gently, “unless—someone else is waiting for you.”

A quick flush mounted into the young man’s face, and he suddenly felt strangely unwilling to have this perceptive girl think that anyone was waiting for him. He would not like her to know what kind of girl was expecting his coming.

“Oh, it’s not that,” he managed to say lamely, “but I simply couldn’t think of butting into a family party like this.” His eyes glanced about questioningly, hesitating at Brand and pausing with a reflective wonder at Clytie in the background.

“But it’s not a family party,” said Cornelia laughingly. “It’s a birthday, and—they don’t even know one another very well yet, so won’t you come in and be another? We really would be glad to have you, and we’ll try to make you feel at home. We’re not a bit formal or formidable. Let me introduce my brother Carey. Carey, come here and meet Mr. Maxwell. You remember my telling how nice his mother was to me on the way home from college.”

She was talking fast, and the pretty color was in her cheeks. She was aware that the stranger was watching her admiringly. Her heart was thumping and the blood was surging through her ears so that it seemed as though she could not hear anything but her own high-pitched voice, and she wanted nothing so much as to break out crying and run and hide. Would Carey come, or would he—

Carey came, dazed, but polite. He was well dressed and groomed, and he knew it. He had no objection to meeting a pleasant stranger who owned a car like the one he had seen drive up at the door before he had left his room. Carey had a habit of judging a man by his car. The two young men appraised each other pleasantly, and there seemed to be a mutual liking. Then suddenly Brand Barlock, never allowing himself long to be left out of consideration, came noisily over to the group and slapped Carey on the back.

“Hello, old man! Got a birthday, have you?”

“Oh, hello, Brand! Forgot you were here. Saw your car out the window. Meet Mr. Maxwell, Mr. Barlock.” And the two acknowledged the introduction.

“My father, Brand.”

Mr. Copley spoke graciously to the young man, yet with a degree of dignity, looking him over speculatively. This was not the kind of young man he would choose for his son’s friend, yet he regarded him with leniency.

Suddenly Carey turned and saw Grace Kendall.

“Oh, I say, Miss Kendall! This is awfully good of you.” He took a step and shook hands with her. “Say, this is a real party, after all, isn’t it? A surprise party. Upon my word, I thought Cornelia was kidding me when she said we were going to have a birthday party.”

Grace Kendall laughed and clapped her hands, and all the rest followed her example. In the din of laughter and clapping Carey suddenly spotted Clytie glowering back by the fireplace, and a wave of panic swept over his face. He turned startled eyes on his sister and father and stood back while Cornelia introduced their guests to Maxwell and her father. He wondered how she could say “Miss Dodd” so easily, and how she had gotten acquainted with Clytie. His cheeks began to burn. Then she must have seen him that day on Chestnut Street, after all. And Louise had talked, too! And yet his sister’s face was sweet and innocent!

Then he became aware that an appeal was being made to him to keep the young stranger to dinner and that the stranger was protesting that he could not thrust himself on a birthday party in this way. Carey roused to the occasion and gave an eager invitation.

“Of course you’re going to stay to my party!” But even as he said it he wondered what a man of Maxwell’s evident type would think of a girl like Clytie. Oh, if only she weren’t here! And Grace Kendall! What must she think? He stole a look at her, standing there so gracefully in that blue dress like a cloud, talking to Brand. What business did Brand have looking at her like that as if he had known her always? Now Brand would pursue her. Carey could see that Brand liked her. He always pursued a girl he took a notion to. He would take her out riding in that car of his, and—

But everybody was talking now, and Cornelia had called upon him to bring in the box of ferns. She herself had suddenly disappeared into the kitchen and was standing against the closed door, pressing her hand against her forehead and trying to think.

“What shall we do, Louie, dear? What
shall
we do? Father has invited that man.” Cornelia found she was trembling; even her lips were trembling so she could hardly speak.

“Do?” said Louise maturely. “We’ll go right ahead. We heard it all. Harry has fixed it up that he’ll stay out and help. There’s plenty of things left over for him to eat, and I’ll fix him a plate betweentimes.”

“I can fix my own plate,” growled Harry happily. “You know I didn’t want to sit in there with all those folks any of the time.”

“But Harry! It’s Carey’s party, and you not at it?”

“Sure! I’m at it! I’m
it
! Don’t you see? I’m the chauffeur running this car. I’m the chef cooking this dinner! Get out there quick, Cornie, and file those folks into their seats. This soup is getting cold, and they ought to get to work. That’s a good guy, and he’s got some car, I’ll tell the world!”

So Cornelia went back to marshal the party out to the table. Maxwell was turning to leave, saying once more that it was awfully kind of them to ask him, but he could not possibly stay. And just then the dining room door was flung open by Harry, and the whole company stopped and breathed a soft “Ah!” as they saw the pretty candlelit room. Then as one man they went forward and began to search for their places, all except Maxwell who went forward indeed to get a closer glimpse of the pretty table but lingered in the doorway. There was something so wholesome and homelike about the place, something so interesting and free from self-consciousness about the girl, that he was held in spite of himself. He had not realized that there were such girls as this in his day. He was curious to watch her and see if she really was different.