Re-Creations (2 page)

Of course, she was sorry her mother was sick, but Father spoke hopefully, confidently about her, and the rest would probably do her good. It wasn’t as if Mother were hopelessly ill. She was thankful as any of them that that had not come. But Mother had always understood her aspirations, and if she were only at home she would show Father how unreasonable it was for her to have to give up now when only a year and a half more and the goal would be reached and she could become a contributing member of the family, rather than just a housekeeper!

Over and over the sorrowful round Cornelia’s thoughts went as mile after mile rushed away under the wheels and home drew nearer. Now and then she thought a little of how it would be when she got home, but when one had to visualize an entirely new home about which one had not heard a thing, not even in what part of the city it was located, how could one anticipate a homecoming? They must have just moved, she supposed, and probably Mother had worked too hard settling. Mother always did that. Indeed, Cornelia had been so entirely away from home during her college life that she was almost out of harmony with it, and her sole connection had been cheerful little letters mostly filled with what she was going to do when she finished her course and became an interior decorator.

It was almost two years since she had been at home, for last summer and the summer before she had spent in taking special courses in a summer school not far from her college, and the intervening Christmas she had been invited to a wonderful house party in New York at the home of one of her classmates who had unlimited money and knew just how to give her friends a good time. Mother had thought these opportunities too good to be wasted, and to her surprise Father also had been quite willing for her to spend the extra time and money, and so she had grown quite away from the home and its habits. She began to feel, as she drew nearer and nearer to the home city, almost as if she were going among strangers.

It was growing quite dusky, and lights were glinting out in stray farmhouses along the way. The train was due in the city at seven o’clock. It was almost six, and the box of fudge that the girls had supplied her with had palled upon her. Somehow she did not feel hungry, only sick at heart and woefully homesick for the college and the ripple of laughter and chatter down the corridors; the jokes about college fish and rice pudding; the dear, funny exchange of secrets; even the papers that had to be written! How gladly would she go back now and never grumble about anything if she only knew she could finish without an interruption and then move to the city to live with Mable and Alice as they had planned, and get into big work! Oh the dreams, the bubbles that were being broken with all their pretty glitter of rainbow hues gone into nothingness! Oh the drab monotony of simple home life!

So her thoughts beat restlessly through her brain and drove the tears into her smarting eyes.

Presently the train halted at a station, and a small multitude rushed in, breezy, rough, and dirty, with loud voices and garments covered with grease and soil; toilers of the road, they were going back to the city, tossing their clamor across the car, settling their implements out of the way under their big, muddy shoes. One paused before Cornelia’s empty half seat, and suddenly before he could sit down a lady slipped into it, with a smile and a motion toward a whole empty seat across the aisle. The man accepted the offer good-naturedly, summoning a fellow laborer to share it with him, and Cornelia looked up relieved to meet the smile of her seal-clad former neighbor across the aisle.

“I thought it would be more pleasant for us both, dear, if I came over here,” she murmured with a smile. “They were pretty strong of garlic.”

“Oh, thank you!” said Cornelia and then grew shy as she noticed the jewels on the delicate hand that rested on the soft fur. What part had she in life with a woman like this, she who had to leave college because there wasn’t money enough to let her stay till she had finished? Perhaps she was the least bit ungracious to the kindly woman who had made the move obviously for her protection, but the kindly stranger would not be rebuffed.

“I’ve been watching you all the afternoon,” she said. “And I’m glad of this opportunity of getting acquainted with you if you don’t mind. I love young people.”

Cornelia wished her seatmate would keep quiet or go away, but she tried to smile gratefully.

“I was so interested in all those young people who came down to see you off. It reminded me of younger days. Was that a college up on the hill above the station?”

Now indeed was Cornelia’s tongue loosened. Her beloved college! Ah, she could talk about that even to ladies clad in furs and jewels, and she was presently launched in a detailed description of the junior play, her face glowing vividly under the opened admiration of the white-haired, beautiful woman, who knew just how to ask the right questions to bring out the girl’s eager tale and who responded so readily to every point she brought out.

“And how is it that you are going away?” she asked at last. “I should think you could not be spared. You seem to have been the moving spirit in it all. But I suppose you are returning in time to do your part.”

Cornelia’s face clouded over suddenly, and she drew a deep sigh. For the moment she had forgotten. It was almost as if the pretty lady had struck her in the face with her soft, jeweled hand. She seemed to shrink into herself.

“No,” she said at last sadly, “I’m not going—back
ever,
I’m afraid.” The words came out with a sound almost like a sob and were wholly unintentional with Cornelia. She was not one to air her sorrows before strangers, or even friends, but somehow the whole tragedy had come over her like a great wave that threatened to engulf her. She was immediately sorry that she had spoken, however, and tried to explain in a tone less tragic. “You see, my mother is not well and had to go away, and—they needed me at home.”

She lifted her clouded eyes to meet a wealth of admiration in the older woman’s gaze.

“How beautiful! To be needed, I mean,” the lady said with a smile. “I can think just what a tower of strength you will be to your father. Your father is living?”

“Yes,” gasped Cornelia with a sudden thought of how terrible it would be if he were gone. “Oh, yes; and it’s strange—he used those very words when he wrote me to come home.” Then she grew rosy with the realization of how she was thinking out loud to this elegant stranger.

“Of course he would,” asserted the lady. “I can see that you are! I was thinking that as I watched you all the afternoon. You seem so capable and so
—sweet
!”

“Oh, but I’m
not
!” burst out the girl honestly. “I’ve been real cross about it ever since the letter came. You see,”—and she drew her brows, earnestly trying to justify herself—“you see, I can’t help thinking it’s all a mistake. I’m glad to go home and help, but someone else could have done that, and I think I could have helped to better purpose if I had been allowed to stay and finish my course and then been able to help out financially. Father has lost some money lately, which has made things hard, and I was planning to be an interior decorator. I should soon have been able to do a good deal for them.”

“Oh, but my dear! No one can take a daughter’s place in a home when there is trouble, not such a daughter’s place as you occupy, I’m sure. And as for the other thing, if you have it in you it will come out, you may be sure. You’ll begin by decorating the home interior, and you won’t lose anything in the end. Such things are never lost nor time wasted. God sees to that, if you are doing your best right where He put you. I can just see what an exquisite spot you’ll make of that home, and how it will rest your mother to know you are taking her place.”

Cornelia sadly shook her head.

“There won’t be any chance for decorating,” she said slowly. “They’ve had to move away from the home we owned, and father said it wasn’t very pleasant there.”

“All the more chance for your talents!” said the lady with determined cheerfulness. “I know you have a sense of the beautiful, for I’ve been studying that lovely little hat you wear and how well it suits your face and tones with your coat and dress and gloves. However unpleasant and gloomy that new house may be, it will begin to glow and blossom and give out welcome within a short time after you get there. I should like to look in and prove the truth of my words. Perhaps I shall sometime, who knows? You just can’t help making things fit and beautiful. There’s a look in your face that makes me sure. Count the little house your opportunity, as every trial and test in this world really is, you know, and you’ll see what will come. I know, for I’ve seen it tried again and again.”

“But one can’t do much without money,” sighed Cornelia, “and money is what I had hoped to earn.”

“You’ll earn it yet, very likely, but even if you don’t, you’ll do the things. Why, the prettiest studio I ever saw was furnished with old boxes covered with bark and lichens, and cushioned with burlap. The woodwork was cheap pine stained dark, the walls were rough, and there was a fireplace built from common cobblestones. When the teakettle began to sing on the hearth and my friend got out her little cheap teacups from the ten-cent store, I thought it was the prettiest place I ever saw, and all because she had put herself into it, and not money, and made everything harmonize. You’ll do it yet. I can see it in your eyes. But here we are at last in the city, and aren’t you going to give me your address? Here’s mine on this card, and I don’t want to lose you now that I’ve found you. I want you to come and see me sometime if possible. And if I get back to this city again sometime—I’m only passing through now and meeting my son to go on to Washington with him in the morning—but if I get back this way sometime soon I want to look you up, if I may, and see if I didn’t prophesy truly, my dear little Interior Decorator.”

This was the kind of admiration Cornelia was used to, and she glowed with pleasure under it, her cheeks looking very pretty against the edge of brown fur on her coat collar. She hastily scribbled the new address on one of her cards and handed it out with a dubious look, almost as if she would like to recall it.

“I haven’t an idea what kind of a place it will be,” she said apologetically. “Father seemed to think I wouldn’t like it at all. Perhaps it won’t be a place I would be proud to have you see me in.”

“I’m sure you’ll grace the place, however humble it is,” said the lady with a soft touch of her jeweled hand on Cornelia’s. And just then the train slid into the station and came to a halt. Almost immediately a tall young man strode down the aisle and stood beside the seat. It seemed a miracle how he would have arrived so soon, before the passengers had gathered their bundles ready to get out.

“Mother!” he said eagerly, lifting his hat with the grace and ease of a young man well versed in the usages of the best society. And then he stooped and kissed her. Cornelia forgot herself in her admiration of the little scene. It was so beautiful to see a mother and son like this. She sighed wistfully. If only Carey could be like that with Mother! What an unusual young man this one seemed to be! He treated his mother like a beloved friend. Cornelia sat still, watching, and then the mother turned and introduced her.

“Arthur, I want you to meet Miss Copely. She has made part of the way quite pleasant and interesting for me.”

Then Cornelia was favored with a quick, searching glance accompanied by a smile, which was first cordial for his mother’s sake and then grew more so with his own approval as he studied her. The girls his mother picked were apt to be satisfactory. She could see he was accepting her at the place where his mother left off. A moment more, and he was carrying her suitcase in one hand and his mother’s in the other, while she, walking with the lady, wondered at herself and wished that fate were not just about to whirl her away from these most interesting people.

Then she caught a glimpse of her father at the train gate, with his old derby pulled down far over his forehead as if it were getting too big and his shabby coat collar turned up about his sunken cheeks. How worn and tired he looked! Yes, and old and thin. She hadn’t remembered that his shoulders stooped so, or that his hair was so gray. Had all that happened in two years? And that must be Louise waving her handkerchief so violently just in front of him. Was that Harry in that old red baseball sweater with a smudged white letter on its chest, and ragged wrists? He was chewing gum, too! Oh, if these new acquaintances would only get out of the way! It would be so dreadful to have to meet and explain and introduce! She forgot that she had a most expressive face and that her feelings were quite open to the eyes of her new friends, until she suddenly looked up and found the young man’s eyes upon her interestedly, and then the pink color flew over her whole face in confusion.

“Please excuse me,” she said, reaching out for her suitcase. “I see my father,” and without further formalities she fairly flew down the remainder of the platform and smothered herself in the bosom of her family, anxious only to get them off to one side and away from observation.

“She’s a lovely girl,” said the lady wistfully. “She wants to be an interior decorator and make a name and fame for herself, but instead she’s got to go home from college and keep the house for that rabble. Still, I think she’ll make good. She has a good face and sweet, true eyes. Sometime we’ll go and see her and find out.”

“M’m!” said the son, watching Cornelia escape from a choking embrace from her younger brother and sister. “I should think that might be interesting,” and he walked quite around a group of chattering people greeting some friends in order that he might watch her the longer. But when Cornelia at last straightened her hat and looked furtively about her, the mother and son had passed out of sight, and she drew a deep sigh of thanksgiving and followed her father and the children downstairs to the trolley. They seemed delightful people, and under other circumstances she might have heartily enjoyed their company, but if she had hard things to face she didn’t want an audience while she faced them. Her father might be shabby and old, but he was her father, and she wasn’t going to have him laughed at by anybody, even if he didn’t always see things as she thought he ought to see them.