Up a Road Slowly (20 page)

The spotlessly clean old house was filled with family on the day before my graduation. In the library we had a few small logs blazing in the fireplace; we didn't really need a fire, but I persuaded the boys that the wind drifting in from the woods still carried a slight chill that was sure to grow sharper by evening. So they built the fire for me, knowing very well that I wanted it for beauty rather than for comfort, calling me Emily Dickinson and asking me if I'd heard of people in some far-off places freezing for want of the fuel that I was wasting. Actually, the added warmth was not unpleasant, and the glow of the flames did much to soften the aging shabbiness of Aunt Cordelia's library. We had waxed the floor and washed the windows, but the faded paper on the walls and the rows of worn book-bindings could not be brightened by either soapsuds or wax.

Jonathan approved of my fire. We stood before it, hand in hand, as we watched the play of the flames. “Firelight does for an old room like this what wisdom does for an old face, Julie. It softens the grimmer aspects and compensates for the drained color.”

“Doesn't goodness do the same thing, Jonathan?” I asked, looking across the hall at good Mr. Peters, who stood talking to Chris.

“That's the kind of wisdom I am talking about. Learning isn't always enough, you know. I've seen some very unlovely old faces that belonged with very well-stocked brains. There were the ones that lacked the other elements of wisdom—kindness, compassion, a sense of humor.”

Alicia came in through the open door, hand in hand with my little niece. “What are you talking about?” she asked, smiling. “You have something of a high school commencement look about you. You weren't, by chance, telling Julie that it is her generation that must carry the torch that is being thrown to them tonight, were you, Jonathan?”

“No, I realize that the torch passes from one set of hands to another almost before you get the state records settled, Alicia.”

Alicia nodded agreement. She looked at me, and I could see her quick eyes taking in every detail of my dress, my hairdo, even the color of my lipstick. She seemed to approve of me.

“I'd better go up and find Laura,” I said. “Aunt Cordelia made her promise to hear my speech so I won't fumble it.”

I noticed Father standing alone at one of the living room windows as I started to go up to my room. It struck me that he looked a little wistful that evening, a little less youngish, less animated. I noticed that the flags of gray above his temples were becoming wider and whiter lately; it didn't seem right. I went over and linked my arm in his and I noticed that his face lighted as if he were pleased.

“What were you thinking about over here by yourself, Professor Trelling?” I asked.

“About my littlest one. Forgive a cliché, Julie?”

“I'll work on it.”

“Well, then it seems only yesterday—” He laughed a little and left the sentence unfinished. “I'm torn between gratitude to Cordelia and envy of her. I've never known you well enough, Julie.”

“Why, we've had wonderful times together, Father. Remember how I used to love going out to dinner with you? Remember the fun we had when you and Alicia took the boys and me to New York?”

He nodded. “That's what I was thinking about, Julie. I've been a source of entertainment; I've been a father who was with you when everything was going smoothly. But I haven't been with you when you were troubled—when the crises came up. It's been Cordelia who has stood by you in those times.”

Once I had said the gist of that to Aunt Cordelia. I had called Father and Alicia “holiday parents.” I tried to make light of the idea now.

“The next crisis that I stumble into, I'll come running to you, Father; depend upon it.” I pressed my cheek against his. “Don't be a dope, darling, you have no idea how proud I am of you,” I whispered.

He smiled. “You've grown up too fast to suit me, Julie,” he said. He kissed me before I ran off to join Laura.

I didn't need to practice the speech, and Laura didn't insist. We just sat together at my window, and talked of little things. We were two young women, both of us in love, and it was a time of quiet happiness and relaxation. I wished that I could marry Danny the next day and move into a cottage next to Laura and Bill and live happily the rest of our lives.

“Do you agree with Aunt Cordelia that Danny and I should be separated—that we should get out into life and have new experiences?” I asked her.

“Yes, Julie, I do. I know it isn't what you want to hear, but I think Aunt Cordelia is right, dear.”

“I've worked so hard getting up to this plateau; now it seems I have to start out on another climb.”

“One never stops climbing, Julie, unless he wants to stop and vegetate. There's always something just ahead.”

Then there was a knock at the door. “Girls,” Aunt Cordelia's firm voice called, “we must get ready to drive into town. You and William and little Julie will go with Adam and Alicia, Laura. I suppose you will want to go with Danny, Julia.”

Graduation exercises are always much alike, dreadfully routine, really, except for the members of that long processional, each one trembling a little beneath his academic robe when the first sound of the organ announces that “This is It.” For those trembling ones and for the bright-faced relatives in the audience, each commencement is unique and wonderful. Alicia was jaded with many such ceremonies, but even she admitted to a special thrill that night when the long line of us walked solemnly down the middle aisle of the auditorium, and when Ned Lawrence as salutatorian and I as valedictorian took our places on the stage beside Dean Evans and my dear old Jonathan Eltwing, who was to deliver the commencement address. I remember looking down from the platform into their faces: Laura with her great blue eyes suspiciously bright as if a film of tears might be in them; Bill whispering to small Julie, both of them looking at me while she nodded to what he was whispering and clasped and unclasped her hand in a surreptitious wave. Then there were Father and Alicia, holding hands and smiling up at me; there was Christopher with his arms folded, trying to look very serene and detached, while Danny nervously and quite openly chewed at a thumbnail, a gesture which I knew would continue until he was convinced that I wouldn't collapse when it was time for me to speak.

Finally, there at the end of the row was Aunt Cordelia, stiffly erect, poised, confident that no niece of hers could do other than well in this maiden speech. “Oh, Aunt Cordelia, how funny you are. And how I love you!” I said to myself. She wouldn't have approved of such a childish thought; she would have expected me to be high-minded, reaching for the stars—that sort of thing.

I had dreaded the first few seconds of my speech just a little, that brief interval between the final words of the introduction and the sound of my own voice going out to several hundred people in the silent auditorium. But once on my feet and accustomed after a few seconds to the sound of my voice, I stood relaxed and confident, my notes at hand in case of panic, perhaps a trace of something inherited from Uncle Haskell helping to give me a sense of pleasure and well-being.

It was not a speech that was going to shake the world, but it was direct and earnest. I saw Father nod once or twice at an idea I brought out, and Danny was able to clasp his hands around one crossed knee and to give the impression of a young man entirely confident that his girl was doing all right. When I was through I had the pleasure of hearing applause ringing throughout the auditorium and of seeing Jonathan smiling at me as if I were someone very special to him.

Beautiful hours move so quickly. The speeches were applauded, the diplomas handed out, the triumphant recessional march completed, and then it was over except for the extended hands, the pleasant words of many kindly people. I walked through the crowded lobby of the auditorium, my left hand clasped tightly with Danny's, happiness in every fiber of my being.

We were almost to the exit when we stopped to stand for a minute with Aunt Cordelia, and as we stood there I saw Jonathan Eltwing making his way toward us. He took my hand in both his own.

“You did beautifully, Julie, it was a good speech.” Then he turned to my aunt and offered his arm to her. “Cordelia, you have every reason to be proud.”

Aunt Cordelia was never one to lose her poise. She laid her hand on the arm of this man she had once loved, one whom I rather guessed that she still loved, and her voice was coolly proper and matter of fact.

“I am, Jonathan,” she said, “within certain limits, I am quite proud of her.”