It was very still in the church as the opening chords of the anthem were struck. The anthems were always appreciated by the congregation. Since Grace Kendall had been organist and choir master there was always something new and pleasing, and no one knew beforehand just who might be going to sing a solo that day. Sometimes Grace Kendall herself sang, although but rarely. People loved to hear her sing. Her voice was sweet and well cultivated, and she seemed to have the power of getting her words across to one’s soul which few others possessed.
Cornelia, as her lips formed the words of the opening chorus, wondered idly, almost apathetically, whether Grace would take the tenor solo this time. She could, of course; but Cornelia dreaded it like a blow that was coming swiftly to her. It seemed the knell of her brother’s self-respect. He had failed her right at the start, and of course no one would ever ask him to sing again; and equally of course he would be ashamed, and never want to go to that church again. Her heart was so heavy that she had no sense of the triumph and beauty of the chorus as it burst forth in the fresh young voices about her, voices that were not heavy like her own with a sense of agony and defeat.
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord.”
It was, of course, a big thing for an amateur volunteer choir to attempt, but in its way it was well done. Grace Kendall seemed to have a natural feeling for expression, and she had developed a wonderful talent for bringing out some voices and suppressing others. Moreover, she trained for weeks on a composition before she was willing to produce it. This particular one had been in waiting some time until a tenor soloist fit for the part should be available. Carey had seemed to fit right in. Grace had told Cornelia this the night before, which made the humiliation all the harder now. Cornelia’s voice stopped entirely on “the beginning,” and never got to “the ending” at all. Something seemed to shut right up in her throat and make sound impossible. She wished she could sink down through the floor, and hide away out of sight somewhere. Of course the audience did not know that her brother was to have sung in this particular anthem; but all the choir knew it, and they must be wondering. Surely they had noticed his absence. She was thankful that her seat kept her a trifle apart from the rest, and that she was a comparative stranger, so that no one would be likely to ask where he was. If she could only get through this anthem somehow, making her lips move till the end, and sit down! The church seemed stifling. The breath of the roses about the pulpit came sickeningly sweet.
It was almost time for the solo. Another page, another line! At least she would not look around. If anybody noticed her, he should think she knew all about what was going to happen next. They would perhaps think that Carey had been called away—as, indeed, he had; she caught at the words “called away”; that was what she would have to say when they asked her after service, called away suddenly. Oh! And such a calling! Would Grace ever speak to him again? Would they be able to keep it from her that that detestable Clytie had been at the bottom of it all? It wouldn’t be so bad if Grace had never met her. Oh, why had Cornelia been so crazy as to invite them together? Now! Now! Another note!
Into the silence of the climax of the chorus there came a clear, sweet tenor voice, just behind Cornelia, so close it startled her, and almost made her lose her self-control, so sweet and resonant and full of feeling that at first she hardly recognized that she had ever heard it before.
“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts!”
“Carey!”
Her trembling senses took it in with thrill after thrill of wonder and delight. It was really Carey, her brother, singing like that! Carey, standing on the top step of the little stairway winding up from the choir room, close beside the organ. Carey with his hair rumpled wildly, his coat-sleeve half ripped out, a tear in the knee of his trousers, a white face with long black streaks across it, a cut on his chin, and his eyes blue-black with the intensity of the moment, but a smile like a cherub’s on his lips. He was singing as he had never sung before, as no one knew he could sing, as he had not thought he could sing himself, singing as one who had come “out of great tribulation,” as the choir had just sung a moment before, a triumphant, tender, marvellous strain.
“Gee!” breathed Harry back by the door, in awe, under his breath, and the soul of Maxwell was lifted and thrilled by the song. Little Louise in her seat all alone gripped her small hands in ecstasy, and smiled till the tears came; and the father, who had found his friend too ill for his wife to leave him, and had stolen into church late by the side door and sat down under the gallery, bowed his head and prayed, his heart filled with one longing, that the boy’s mother could have heard him.