CORINNA WONDERS
After a winter of Italian skies spring had come in a night. It was a
morning in April, blue and soft as a cloud, with a roving fragrance of
lilacs and hyacinths in the air. Already the early bloom of the orchard
had dropped, and the freshly ploughed fields, with splashes of henna in
the dun-coloured soil, were surrounded by the budding green of the
woods.
As Mrs. Culpeper knocked at the door of Corinna's shop, she noticed that
the pine bough in the window had been replaced by bowls of growing
narcissi. For a moment her stern expression relaxed, and her face,
framed in a bonnet of black straw with velvet strings, became soft and
anxious. Beneath the veil of white illusion which reached only to the
tip of her small sharp nose, her eyes were suddenly touched with spring.
"How delicious the flowers smell," she remarked when Corinna opened the
door; and then, as she entered the room and glanced curiously round her,
she asked incredulously, "Do people really pay money for these old
illustrations, Corinna?"
"Not here, Cousin Harriet. I bought these in London."
"And they cost you something?"
"Some of these, of course, cost more than others. That," Corinna pointed
to a mezzotint of the Ladies Waldegrave by Valentine Green, "cost a
little less than ten thousand dollars."
"Ten thousand dollars!" Mrs. Culpeper gazed at the print as
disapprovingly as if it were an open violation of the Eighteenth
Amendment. "We didn't pay anything like that for our largest copy of a
Murillo. Well, I may not be artistic, but, for my part, I could never
understand why any one should want an old book or an old picture."
Sitting rigidly upright in one of the tapestry-covered chairs, she added
condescendingly: "Stephen admires this room very much."
"Stephen," remarked Corinna pleasantly, "is a dear boy."
"Just now," returned Stephen's mother, with her accustomed air of duty
unflinchingly performed, "he is giving us a great deal of anxiety. Never
before, not even when he was in the war, have I spent so many sleepless
nights over him."
"I am sorry. Poor Stephen, what has he done?"
"I have always hoped," observed Mrs. Culpeper firmly, "that Stephen
would marry Margaret."
"I am aware of that." A flicker of amusement brightened Corinna's eyes.
"So, I think, is Stephen."
"I have tried to be honest. It seems to me that a mother's wish should
carry a great deal of weight in such matters."
"It ought to," assented Corinna, "but I've never heard of its doing so."
"Everything would have been satisfactory if he had not allowed himself
to be carried away by a foolish fancy."
"I cannot imagine," said Corinna primly, "that Stephen could ever be
foolish. It gives me hope of him."
Impaling her, as if she had been a butterfly, with a glance as sharp as
a needle, Mrs. Culpeper demanded sternly, "How much do you know of this
affair, my dear?"
In spite of her natural courage Corinna was seized with a shiver of
apprehension. "Do you think it is an affair?" she asked.
"I think it is worse. I think it is an infatuation."
"What, Stephen? Not really?" Corinna's voice was mirthfully incredulous.
"I have seen the girl once or twice," resumed Mrs. Culpeper, "and she
seems to me objectionable from every point of view."
"Only from the Culpeper one," protested Corinna. "I find her very
attractive."
"Well, I do not." Mrs. Culpeper had relapsed into her tone of habitual
martyrdom. "If Stephen chooses to kill me," she added, "he may do it."
Corinna leaned toward her ingratiatingly. "Don't you admit, Cousin
Harriet, that I have improved Patty tremendously?"
"I see no difference."
"Oh, but there is one--a great difference! If you had come to one of the
Governor's receptions last winter, you couldn't have told that she
wasn't--well, one of us. She has been so quick to pick up things that it
is amazing."
Mrs. Culpeper lifted the transparent mesh from the point of her nose.
"Do you know," she demanded, "that the girl was born in a circus tent?"
"So I have heard. It was a romantic beginning."
Foiled but undaunted, the older woman fixed on Corinna the stare with
which she would have attempted the conversion of an undraped pagan if
she had ever encountered one. Though she was unconscious of the fact as
she sat there, suffering yet unbending, in the Florentine chair, she
represented the logical result of the conservative principle in nature,
of the spirit that forgets nothing and learns nothing, of the instinct
of the type to reproduce itself, without variation or development, until
the pattern is worn too thin to endure. That Stephen had inherited this
passive force, Corinna knew, but she knew also, that it was threatened
by his incurable romanticism, by that inarticulate longing for heroic
adventures.
Suddenly, as if moved by a steel spring, Mrs. Culpeper rose. "I know you
have a great deal of influence over Stephen," she said, "and I hoped
that, instead of encouraging him in his folly, you would sympathize with
me."
"I do sympathize with you, Cousin Harriet--only I have learned that it
is sometimes very difficult to decide what is folly and what is wisdom
in a man's life."
"There can scarcely be a doubt, I think, about this. Surely you cannot
imagine that there would be happiness for my son in a marriage with the
daughter of Gideon Vetch?"
There was a dreamy sweetness in Corinna's eyes. "I can't answer that,
Cousin Harriet, because I don't know. But are you sure it has gone as
far as that? Has Stephen really thought of marriage?"
"I don't know. He tells me nothing," replied Mrs. Culpeper hopelessly,
and she added after a pause: "But I can't help having eyes. It is either
that--or he is going into politics." Her tone was as despairing as if
she had said, "he is coming down with fever."
For a minute Corinna hesitated; then she responded cheerfully, "If it
is any comfort to you, Cousin Harriet, I feel that you are making a
mountain out of a mole hill. When it comes to the point, I believe that
Stephen will revert to type like the rest of us."
Mrs. Culpeper clutched desperately at the straw that was offered her.
"You think he won't ask her to marry him?"
"If he does," said Corinna firmly, "I shall be more surprised than I
have ever been in my life."
The look of martyrdom faded slowly from her visitor's features. "You say
this because you know Stephen?"
"Because I know Stephen--and men," answered Corinna, while she thought
of John Benham. "Frankly, I think it would be a splendid thing for
Stephen to do. It would prove, you know, that he cared enough to make a
sacrifice. I think it would be splendid; but I think also that we are of
the breed that looks too long before it leaps. Our great adventures take
place in dreams or in talk. We like to play with forlorn hopes; but the
only forlorn hope we have actually embraced is the conservative
principle; and we couldn't let that go, even if we tried, because it is
bred in our bone. So I believe that the ^hereditary habit will drag
Stephen safely back before he rushes into danger. He may play with the
thought of Patty, but he will probably marry Margaret."
If Mrs. Culpeper's too refined features could have expressed passion, it
would have been the passion of thankfulness. "It was worth coming," she
said, "to hear you say that of Stephen."
When at last she had gone, primly grateful for the scrap of comfort,
Corinna stood for a minute with her eyes on the sunbeams at the window.
Outside there were the roving winds and the restless spirit of April;
and feeling suddenly that she could stand the close walls and the
familiar objects no longer, she put on her hat and gloves and went out
into the street. Scarcely knowing why, with some vague thought that she
might go to see Patty, she turned in the direction of the Capitol
Square, walking with her buoyant grace which seemed a part of the
fugitive beauty of April. The air was so fragrant, the sunshine so
softly burning, that it was as if summer were advancing, not gradually,
but in a single miracle of florescence. It was one of those days which
release all the secret inexpressible dreams of the heart. Every face
that she passed was touched with the wistful longing which is the very
essence of spring. She saw it in the faces of the women who hurried,
warm, flushed, and impatient, from the shops or the markets; she saw it
in the faces of the men returning from work and thinking of freedom; and
she saw it again in the long sad faces of the dray-horses standing
hitched to a city cart at the corner.
In the Square the sunlight lay in splinters over the young grass, which
was dotted with buttercups, and overhead the long black boughs of the
trees were sprinkled with pale green leaves. Back and forth from the
grassy slopes to the winding brick walks, squirrels darted, busy and
joyous; and a few old men, never absent from the benches, were smiling
vaguely at the passers-by.
When she reached the gate of the Governor's house, her wish to see Patty
had vanished, and she decided that she would go on to the library and
ask for a book that she had recently heard John Benham discussing. How
much of her life now, in spite of its active impersonal interests, was
beginning to centre in John Benham! They were planning to be married in
June, and beyond that month of roses, which was once so saturated with
memories of her early romance, she saw ahead of her long years of
tranquil happiness. Well, she could not complain. After all, was not
tranquil happiness the best that life had to offer?
She had ascended the steps of the library, and was about to enter the
swinging doors, when she turned and glanced back at the dappled boughs
of an old sycamore, outlined so softly, with its budding leaves, against
the green hill and the changeable blue of the sky. The long walk was
almost deserted. A fountain played gently at the end of the slope; a few
coloured nurses were dozing on a bench, while their be-ribboned charges
scattered peanuts before a fluttering crowd of sparrows, pigeons, and
squirrels; and, leaning on a rude crutch, a lame old negro woman was
dragging a basket of brushwood to the brow of the hill. The scene was
very peaceful, wrapped in that languorous stillness which is the
pervading charm of the South; and beyond the high spikes of the iron
fence, the noise of passing street cars sounded far off and unreal.
She was still standing there, with her dreamy eyes on the old negress
toiling up the hill with her basket of brushwood, when a man passed the
fountain hurriedly, and came with a brisk, springy stride up the brick
walk below the library. As she watched him, at first without
recognition, she thought vaguely that his rugged figure made a picture
of embodied activity, of physical energy and enjoyment. The next minute
he reached the old negress, glanced at her casually in passing, and
turning abruptly round, lifted the basket, and carried it to the top of
the hill. Then, as he looked back at the old woman, who limped after
him, he laughed with boyish merriment, and Corinna saw in amazement that
the man was Gideon Vetch.
"He is obliged to be theatrical," remarked a voice behind her, and
glancing over her shoulder she saw that she had been joined by a
severe-looking young woman with several books under her arm.
"Is it that?" asked Corinna doubtfully, and she added to herself after a
moment, "I wonder?"
A little later, as she was leaving the Square, Stephen overtook her, and
she told him of the incident. "The Governor is always breaking out like
an epidemic where you least expect him," she concluded with a smile.
"I know. I've caught him." Though the young man's eyes reflected her
smile, his tone was serious. "I can't rid myself of the fellow."
"Have you been to see him this morning?"
He laughed. "I should say not! But I've been in a worse fix. I've just
walked up the street with--well, imagine it!--that bounder Gershom."
"So you both haunt the Square?"
At the question Stephen turned and faced her frankly. "How, in Heaven's
name, does she stand him?"
"That's a riddle. To me he is impossible."
"He is more than that. He is unspeakable." As he looked into her eyes a
deep anxiety or disturbance appeared beneath the superficial gaiety of
his smile. "The fellow had evidently had a quarrel, perhaps a permanent
break, with Vetch. He was in a kind of cold rage; and do you know what
he said to me? He told me,--not openly, but in pretended secrecy,--that
Vetch had never married Patty's mother--"
For an instant Corinna gazed at him in silence. Then her words came in a
gasp of indignation. "Of course there isn't a word of truth in it!"
"So I said to him. He insists that he has the proofs. You know what it
means?"
"Oh, I know--poor Patty! You understand why he told you?"
"I couldn't at first see the reason; but afterward it came to me."
"The reason is as clear as daylight. He is infatuated, and he imagines
that you stand in his way."
"Not only that. I think he has some idea of using whatever proofs he has
to bend Vetch to his will. He was sharp enough not to say so, for he
knew that would be pure blackmail. The ground he took was one of
nauseating morality, but I inferred that he is trying to force Vetch to
agree to this general strike, and that he is prepared to threaten him
with some kind of exposure if he doesn't. This, however, was mere
surmise on my part. The fellow is as shrewd as he is unprincipled."
When Corinna believed it was in full measure and overflowing. "It's not
true. I know it's not true."
"Has Patty told you anything?"
"Nobody has told me anything. One doesn't have to have a reason for
knowing things--at least one doesn't unless one is a man. I know it
because I know it." Then, without waiting for his reply, she continued
with cheerful firmness: "The best way to treat scandal is to forget it.
Don't you think that Patty improves every day?"
He reddened and looked away from her. "Yes, she grows more attractive,
I--" While she still waited for him to complete his sentence, he shot
out in an embarrassed tone: "Corinna, do you believe in Gideon Vetch?"
For an instant Corinna hesitated. "I believe that he is--well, just
Gideon Vetch," she answered enigmatically.
"Just a professional politician?"
"Not at all. He is a great deal more than that, but what that great deal
is I cannot pretend to say."
"Do you ever see him away from Patty?"
"Now and then. He has been to the shop."
"And you like him?"
Again she hesitated. "Yes, I like him." Turning her head, she looked
straight at him with a glow in her eyes. "That is," she corrected
softly, "I should like him if it were not for John."
"You compare him with John?"
"Don't you?"
"Naturally. Of course the Governor loses by that."
"Who wouldn't?"
Her face flushed at the thought, and as Stephen watched her, he asked in
a gentler voice, "Are you really to be married in June?"
She smiled an assent, with her dreaming gaze on the young leaves and the
blue sky.
"Are you happy?" he persisted.
Her smile answered him again. "One dreads the lonely fireside as one
grows older." Then suddenly, as if the shadow of a cloud had drifted
over the bright sky, he saw the smile fade from her lips and the glow
from her upraised eyes. Somewhere within her brain a voice as hollow as
an echo was repeating, "_Isn't that life--sparrows for larks always?_"
"Well, you know what I feel about you, and what I think about Benham,"
replied Stephen. "You two together stand for all that I admire." As if
ashamed of the tone of sentiment, he continued carelessly after a
moment: "Vetch is very far from being a Benham, and yet there is
something about the man that holds one's attention. People are for ever
discussing him. A little while ago we were talking about his personal
peculiarities and his political offences. Now we are wondering how he
will handle this strike if it comes off; and what effect it will have on
his career? Benham, of course, thinks that he is an instrument in the
hands of a political group; that his office was the price they paid him
not to interfere in the strike. As for me I have no opinion. I am
waiting to see what will happen."
They had reached the old print shop; and, as they paused beneath the
cedars in the front yard, Stephen glanced up at the window under the
quaint shingled roof. The upper storey, he knew, was rented to a couple
of tenants, and he was not surprised when he saw the curtains of dotted
swiss pushed aside and a woman's face look down on him over the red
geranium on the window-sill. The face was familiar; but, while he stared
back at it, searching his memory for a resemblance, the white curtains
dropped together again, veiling the features. Where had he seen that
woman before? What association of ideas did the sight of her recall? In
a flash, while he still groped through mental obscurity, light broke on
him.
"Who is that woman, Corinna?" he asked. "What do you know of her?"
"That woman?" Corinna repeated; then, as he lifted his eyes to the
window, she added, "Oh, that's Mrs. Green. A pathetic face, isn't it? I
know nothing about her except that she came in a few weeks ago, and the
caretaker tells me that she is leaving to-morrow."
"Do you know where she came from?"
"My dear Stephen! Why, what in the world?" A laugh broke from Corinna's
lips. "Did you ever see her before?"
"Twice, and both times in the Capitol Square. I thought her dreadful to
look at."
"I've only glanced at her, but she appeared to me more pathetic than
dreadful. She has been ill, I imagine, and she looks terribly poor. I'm
afraid the rent is too high, but I can't do anything, for she rented her
room from the tenants. I suppose, poor thing, that she is merely a sad
adventuress, and it is not the sad adventuresses, but the glad ones, who
usually enlist a young man's sympathy. By the way, I am lunching with
the Governor to-morrow."
"Is it a party?"
"No, just the family. That shows how intimate I have become with the
Vetches. Don't tell Cousin Harriet, or she would think I was beginning
to corrupt your politics. But I may use my influence to find out what
the Governor intends to do about the strike, and a cousin with a
political secret is worth having."
With a laugh Stephen went on his way, wondering vaguely what there was
about the woman at the window, Mrs. Green Corinna had called her, that
made it impossible for him to rid his mind of her? Glancing back from
the end of the block, he saw that Corinna had entered the shop and that
the curtains at the upper window had been pushed back again while the
dim face of Mrs. Green looked down into the street. Was she watching for
some one? Or was she merely relieving the monotony of life indoors by
gazing down into Franklin Street at an hour when it was almost deserted?