Chapter II: I

Nora always thought of Sunday as Cordelia’s day. She rose very early, on dark, cold Sunday mornings, dewy dawns in midsummer, clicked about the house in her neat Sunday shoes, and hurried over to the church to attend to the last rite for the early communion service. At breakfast, with Della Schuster from the other side of town a frequent guest, Cordelia was generally abstracted. A few housekeeping duties held her until it was time for the ten o’clock service. Then home once more. When she covered her black taffeta dress with a large apron and began to get dinner, Nora was conscious of the irritation Cordelia never quite succeeded in concealing. But Nora had to be fed on Sundays as well as on week days.

On the Sunday following the rector’s call, Cordelia stretched out on the couch after dinner to read ‘The Churchman’ until she fell into a doze.

‘Now if Lizzie Guildford leaves me in peace,’ she sighed to Nora, with forebodings concerning Lizzie, who had edged toward her after service. Ever since Father Stokesbury’s arrival, she had been hinting that her services in the Altar Guild were free for the asking.

Lizzie arrived just as ‘The Churchman’ dropped from Cordelia’s limp fingers. She entered the room with a slight premonitory cough, glanced at herself in the pier glass between the two south windows, and sat down, smoothing out a light dress of summer silk, much too gay for a woman of fifty in Cordelia’s opinion, with her ringed hands. She was the richest woman in Maronac Harbor, living alone in the large house with the mansard roof and the high tower which occupied a whole block on Main Street, built by her father with some of the profits from cheating the early settlers in the region.

‘Have you had Father Stokesbury to supper yet?’ Lizzie opened fire at once in her subdued, ladylike tones.

‘No, I haven’t.’ Cordelia could be brutally direct with people she disliked.

‘I think we’re going to like him. Don’t you?’ Lizzie coughed again.

‘I think so.’

‘He’s young, but really spiritual-minded. He’s so eager for all of us to work hard for Saint Margaret’s. Of course I do what I can.’

* * * * *

‘I won’t have her!’ Cordelia stormed afterward to Nora. ‘She can’t come in Amy’s place. I’ll lie—I’ll tell her I’ve got some one else.’

‘Of course,’ Nora agreed easily. ‘I have to lie most every day.’

‘Why, Nora Deming!’

Nora, glancing at the clock, reminded Cordelia that it was time to start for Della Schuster’s, where they had been invited to supper.

Della lived on the south side of town in the German settlement. Her mother, scorning the generation of her countrymen who had spread over the American settlement of the north side, taking their German beer-gardens with them, clung to her old-country ways and her cheerful orange cottage in a street of blue, orange, and green houses with their gay gardens.

At the river, Cordelia and Nora were delayed by the opening of the drawbridge for one of the early passenger boats that had begun making regular trips across the lake. When the rush of traffic was resumed, two comfortable German citizens barred the sidewalk in front of them. The women took to the street, Cordelia much enraged.

‘They treat women like cows,’ she blustered.

‘Hausfrauen,’ Nora corrected her. When she was studying European history, she had interviewed the baker from whom Cordelia bought Kaffeekuchen on the subject of compulsory military training, from which he had escaped. But he had added laments for the cheap opera of his native land, the good music in the beer-gardens, the annual song-fests, and the submissiveness of German women. Even a good German lady got demoralized on American soil. And as for the natives themselves—Nora now understood perfectly the attitude of the Teutonic male toward women.

Della’s mother had further enlightened her. ‘Big young lady,’ she always began. ‘Sixteen now. You get a fella yet?’ Nora shook her head. ‘You don’t want to be old maid like Miss Tait. A good-lookin’ girl like you. You watch out for nice fella. My Della’—Mrs. Schuster made a discouraged cluck in her throat—’she won’t go to German church. A German fella—she don’t want none. She gets left, I tell her.’

‘Not all girls want to get married,’ Nora volunteered.

Mrs. Schuster’s face spread into a wide toothless smile. ‘Ah, now,’ she laughed. ‘Not want to. My Gott!’

Della was waiting for them in front of the house, prepared to display her garden. It was one of the prettiest Nora had ever seen, like a big fragrant nosegay, all colors, all kinds of sweet scents in an orderly profusion of bloom from early spring until frost. Most of the flowers for the church came from Della’s garden.

Mrs. Schuster, a big, comfortable woman, waddled to the front door. ‘Vell, vell,’ she greeted Nora with her usual formula, ‘how the little one has grown.’

The house, crowded with rocking-chairs and ornaments, the sofa, piled with cushions heavily embroidered with flowers and appropriate sentiments by Della, kept the two women busy all of the time. Della, with her garden, the house-work, and the Altar Guild, had solved better than Lizzie Guildford the problem of the disposal of time. But her mother scolded steadily at an old-maid daughter in the house, and complained that Della left nothing for her to do.

Cordelia and Della settled themselves among the embroidered daisies, roses, and sunflowers on the sofa and were soon launched upon a lengthy discussion of their church work. Nora followed Mrs. Schuster out to the dining-room, were the parrot was. He was a clever bird who could not only repeat a number of words, but could even sing ‘My Old Kentucky Home.’ Mrs. Schuster was now teaching him a little German.

When Nora stood in front of his cage, the bird winked at her solemnly. ‘He talks more than any parrot in town,’ she declared, turning toward Mrs. Schuster.

‘Old maid—old maid—Della old maid,’ shrieked the parrot.

Mrs. Schuster laughed until her little blue eyes disappeared, and her nose, like one of her delicious raised doughnuts, shook up and down. ‘That’s my teachin’ him,’ she admitted. ‘Della—old maid with parrot, I tell her. Yes, he talks pretty goot.’

After Mrs. Schuster had pressed the last of a succession of cold ham, pickles, cake, jelly, and cookies relentlessly upon her guests, Cordelia had to hurry away to the evening service.

‘It’s like you was married to that church,’ Mrs. Schuster said at parting. ‘My Della the same way.’

‘Old maid—old maid—Della old maid,’ the parrot called after them.

Nora surprised Cordelia by offering to go to evensong with her. She liked to watch Father Stokesbury in the dimness of the altar, his face ruddy in the light from the lectern against the snowy whiteness of his surplice. She felt a little wicked as she observed Cordelia’s absorption, her fervent breathing of the prayers, her knees set firmly on the hard, uncarpeted floor.

II

With the passing of the summer Nora discovered one day that Cordelia was beginning to seem less old. She had relaxed the perpetual activity crowded into hours which might easily have been empty, and sat down sometimes without even a piece of sewing to occupy her, rocking back and forth, staring in front of her. One hot afternoon in July she came downstairs wearing a thin white lawn dress with the short sleeves and neck cut out a little, revealing shapely arms and a firm white throat.

‘Do I look silly, Nora? It’s so warm. Of course the dress is out of style. I haven’t worn it since the summer before mamma died.’

The rector had formed the habit of stopping for a cup of tea at Cordelia’s whenever he happened to be calling in the vicinity. He confessed to hurrying through his calls on the south side of town to be back in time to abuse Cordelia’s hospitality. He told Nora it was Miss Tait’s English blood which made her so kind to him.

‘Now you, Miss Nora, you run upstairs to read a novel when a lonely man wants to be amused.’

There was the exquisite torture of seeing Father Stokesbury, and then the awful moment when Nora realized she was unable to say a word. She just had to run upstairs and hide herself in her room. There, undisturbed by the necessity of making conversation, she could revive in her memory the delightful smile which shone all over his face, even though the hum of voices below stabbed her like pain.

Once, when she had stumbled toward the door which offered escape, Father Stokesbury had followed her and said in a tantalizingly pleading tone, ‘Come, Miss Nora, please stay and talk to me.’

She could hardly get upstairs. She was trembling all over when she reached her little carpet rocking-chair near the window. Did he care? Did he want her to stay? But if the sight of her stirred him as the sound of his voice her——No, he couldn’t joke that way. He, too, would be dumb. Why should he care? He never saw her as she really was, capable of amusing talk, full of smiles, free and easy. He saw only an awkward schoolgirl twisting her icy hands in front of her, with not a word to say. He didn’t care. He was just being polite. If she were prettier——Nora went over to the mirror, swinging it back and forth in its heavy black-walnut framework to see if she were altogether plain. The girls at school said if she only did things with her hair——But what? It didn’t matter. She made a difference to no one.

Father Stokesbury played cribbage with Cordelia in the evening. It was his favorite game. He had a shameless way of inviting himself to supper, and then staying on, hour after hour, bent over a cribbage board. Nora didn’t know how long, because she went to bed.

Sometimes when she had moments of active resentment at the way a certain man had invaded her chaste maiden reveries, she tried to think as badly as possible of him to see if such measures of revenge would bring relief. A clergyman who enjoyed playing games with an old woman like Cordelia and drinking tea with a roomful of women was no real man. Nora had her ideals of the world to which real men belonged, adventurous, swashbuckling, emancipated. At least she had once made such limits to a manly sphere. But when reality smashes into dreams——Father Stokesbury had none of the rough masculine virtues and yet—there was so much fun in him. His sober garb had no power of extinguishing his gaiety. He never seemed bored by the Plant girls, or even by old Mrs. Hill, when they intruded upon the cribbage games. He brought out his best stories for Cordelia, who tried to laugh hard at the right time.

The old house, which had been so subdued during the long invalidism of Mrs. Tait with the consequent procession of croaking and eccentric women or church visitors, and had never surrendered to Nora’s youth, collapsed before Father Stokesbury. The best silver was no longer kept hidden in a strong-box upstairs. Cordelia’s old-fashioned jewelry was worn once more, the quaint brooches, the heavy gold bracelets, the pearl and emerald ring.

Old Mrs. Cooper, who visited Cordelia for two weeks every summer as a rest from the Old Ladies’ Home in Kewaukee, where she found herself happier than in the homes of her married sons, at once saw the change in Cordelia.

‘She’s beginning to get over her mother’s death,’ she told Nora. ‘It’s three years now. Poor Cordelia. She was always so prim and proper. Never running around like other young girls. Always so good to her mother. Stayed right by her. But she gave up her own young life. She really never had a chance. I don’t suppose she ever walked out with any young man.’

Mrs. Cooper liked the new rector. She went every morning to the early service, stopping to chat with Father Stokesbury afterward. She made airy speculations about a possible wife for him in Saint Margaret’s, calling upon Cordelia’s advice as she went through her list. But Cordelia, a faithful follower of the Bishop in all his High-Church reforms, favored the celibacy of the clergy, and at most gave her approval only to a marriage outside the parish.

III

Late in August Lizzie Guildford returned from a tour of the East. She appeared at church in the elegant finery that no dressmaker in Maronac could have achieved for her. She had also imported a lorgnette, which she flourished with the proper air of easy detachment as she followed the service in her prayer-book. She held Father Stokesbury in a long conversation at the door, where he was attempting to exchange morning greetings with all of his parishioners.

At once Lizzie detected the rector’s frequent informal visits to Cordelia’s house, and she discovered, without delay, three or four afternoons a week, the necessity of consulting Cordelia on some important matter which she prolonged until Father Stokesbury appeared. He, assuming Miss Guildford to be one of Cordelia’s most cherished friends, treated her accordingly. Cordelia, helpless in her rage, was forced to keep up some decent courtesy to her guest. Lizzie soon began to take the whole parish to her heart. She implored the rector to use her extensive grounds for the Boys’ Club, which he had organized and made his special charge. She also placed her tennis court, the only one in town and hitherto restricted to a small group in her favor, at the disposal of the young people, without qualifications. Nora, dwelling in a churchly household, began to play there every afternoon with Eleanor Porter, whose father had recently come from New York to take charge of the Dry Docks. Rumor reported that Lizzie Guildford was at last opening her purse strings. She had sent for a beautiful silver chalice set with amethysts, which she presented, not to Saint Margaret’s, but to its rector. She was so eager to do more than give money to her church that she called at the rectory to discuss with her priest the possibilities of service. Father Stokesbury in an ill-advised moment suggested Miss Guildford for the Altar Guild to Cordelia.

‘I won’t have her!’ Cordelia snapped, forgetting all allegiance to a spiritual overlord. ‘She’s no good. She wouldn’t do any work—just show off. If she comes on, I leave.’

Naturally Father Stokesbury had a moment of pained surprise. The matter was hastily dropped, and Lizzie continued to sigh for greater spiritual usefulness.

Nora could see that her visits had become intolerable to Cordelia. She was a malicious gossip, bringing out her insinuating stories in a smooth and restrained voice in a way which infuriated the directly honest Cordelia.

‘I suppose you’ve heard of Amy Henderson’s romance,’ she began one day, while she was watching for Father Stokesbury’s belated appearance. Cordelia said nothing. ‘She’s been getting the most beautiful flowers all through the summer—carnations, lilies, and the most gorgeous roses. I saw them when I was calling on her mother.’

‘I didn’t know you called on Mrs. Henderson,’ Cordelia interrupted.

‘I’m doing a little parish visiting at Father Stokesbury’s suggestion. Mrs. Henderson told me about her daughter’s admirer. They don’t even know who he is. Isn’t it romantic?’ Lizzie emitted a laugh that imitated spontaneous girlish interest. ‘They’re sent from Kewaukee without even a card.’

Cordelia maintained a forbidding silence.

Soon Amy Henderson’s mysterious lover began to compete with Lizzie’s indefatigable spiritual activity in the town mind. Amy at church looked just the same, her light hair a trifle more elaborately curled and her face, always a vivid pink, a somewhat more pronounced carmine. Uncritical people like Cordelia considered Amy very pretty. Since she had been working in Weyhausen’s, she had more money to spend on clothes. Her dresses became much more heavily trimmed with lace from bargain counters, and on Sundays she wore a white hat trimmed with two pale-blue ostrich plumes. Amy, like many blondes, considered blue her best color. It gave her the innocent expression of a healthily tinted wax doll with flaxen curls, an excellent style in dolls.

Amy’s romance, in time, took definite shape. The mysterious lover from Kewaukee was forgotten in the fresh interest of Henry Shumway. No one in Maronac Harbor knew anything about him. He had come from foreign parts to take charge of the men’s department at Weyhausen’s, and he had made his work an immediate success. Young men, always weak before the latest novelty in apparel, began to buy their suits, neckties, hats, and shoes from Henry Shumway. He was the type of man so irresistible to an inexperienced girl, tall, dark, his hair curling back from his forehead—his envious rivals suspected art there—and with a dimple in his chin. His clothes, the necessary advertising for his business, were always of the most recent mode. Amy, the only unmarried daughter of a widow whose other children had married far beneath Amy’s ideals for them, might easily sigh before the dazzle of Henry’s charms. But that Henry, with all the ready signs of a ‘light of love,’ should at once settle for life upon Amy, was more than Lizzie Guildford could believe.

Lizzie was expert in affairs of the heart, for she had been much courted in her youth. But each offer filled her with the fear that she was sought in marriage, not for herself, but for her money. In the end, she had refused all her lovers. During this period of extensive visits upon Cordelia, she dwelt much upon this fervid youthful period. She thought now that perhaps she had made a mistake. There was one man—he had seemed such an honest person. If she had married him, she wouldn’t be so lonely now.

‘I think it’s disgusting of Lizzie carrying on all the time about how lonely she is,’ Cordelia exploded to Nora.

‘But she probably _is_ lonely, Cordelia.’

‘She isn’t the only one. Blabbing that way about yourself and your feelings—it isn’t decent. Why doesn’t she ask poor old Mrs. Cooper to stay a few days with her? Mr. Cooper clerked in Guildford’s store for twenty years.’

But Lizzie continued to be lonely in her big house. By Easter time she had aroused the antagonism of the whole parish by her undignified expeditions to the rectory morning, noon, and night. If she had been younger, they would have thought she was throwing herself at Father Stokesbury’s head. But since she was a woman past fifty, she was merely making a fool of herself. To the amazement of the Altar Guild, Father Stokesbury remained blind to Lizzie’s folly. He continued polite through her long calls, followed the usual parish routine, and indulged in the relaxation of tea and cribbage with Cordelia.

Amy’s romance remained hidden from public scrutiny until Edna Tillotson went to Mattie Stellwagen to have a grey silk dress made for Easter. Mattie told her, as a great secret, that she was sewing on Amy Henderson’s wedding outfit. After much persuasion she showed Edna the wedding dress of white crepe bespattered with expensive lace medallions. Edna at once communicated her discovery to the Altar Guild, in the face of Cordelia’s disapproval.

May passed, and June, but still Amy’s wedding did not come off. Hints that Edna had made a mistake sadly ruffled her temper.

‘I saw it with my own eyes,’ she insisted.

‘Perhaps it was just a nice dress,’ Della explained, ‘and Mattie thought——’

‘She told Mattie with her own lips it was her wedding dress.’

Lizzie made a second parish call upon Mrs. Henderson, but no one came to the door, even though Lizzie heard suspicious creakings inside. She went next to buy some tea like Cordelia’s at Weyhausen’s, where she waited for Amy to attend to her order.

‘What’s this I hear about your wedding?’ Lizzie giggled.

Amy blushed, but only slightly. ‘I’m not telling.’

Unfortunately Lizzie did not know Henry Shumway, and Amy’s plans had to mystify her a little longer. Mr. Shumway continued to serve as a masculine ideal for Maronac youths, irrespective of his matrimonial intentions. Whether he was informed of the interest the richest woman in Maronac took in the manager of the men’s furnishings at Weyhausen’s depended upon Amy’s discretion. In the meantime Lizzie continued to flaunt her friendship with the rector of Saint Margaret’s in the faces of the whole parish.