Cloudy Jewel: The Filler.
Things roll along for a bit longer as they had been. The neighbor lady is unpleasant and judgemental, the guardian visits and is very approving of the old-fashioned furnishings and the good homecooked meals, Ellen disapproves with all her heart that Julia is going off to be a paid household figure for her neice and nephew rather than an unpaid drudge for her sister and other neices and nephews, and it's all very... fillertastic. It's entertaining filler. The chapter after that is much the same, only Ellen comes to terms a little more with the change, sees her behavior in a new light, and has them over to dinner again. It's passed over quite swiftly.
They roll on a little longer with new experiences for Julia. Moving-picture viewings! Purses! Fox fur throws! Meal descriptions! Planning! More fluctuating of the children's ages between five and fifteen! This is all so wish-fulfillment-y that it's almost a shock when Grace throws some stealth Angel of the House stuff in about proper feminine behavior, and what to say when a man is driving the car:
With a sober look at the boy: “Don’t do anything crazy, dear! Don’t do anything that you oughtn’t to do.”
“Of course not!” said Allison gravely, sitting up with a manly look in his handsome young face. And by the look he gave her she knew that she had put him upon his honor, and she knew that he would take no risks now that she had trusted him. If she had been a squealing, hectoring kind of woman, he might have been challenged into taking risks, but not here, when she trusted him and the responsibility was all his.
If you nag your man about how he handles the wheel, you are liable to goad him into playing chicken with semis and flattening you both. Just gently remind him that your life is in his hands, and give him a sense of responsibility. Okay, how does this work in practice?
Julia Cloud, as she drew a long breath and prepared, to enjoy the flight down the white ribbon of road, up a hill and down another, registered the thought that here was a clew to this boy’s character. Trust him, and he would be faithful. Distrust him, and you wouldn’t be anywhere. It did not come to her in words that way, but rather as a subconscious fact that was incorporated into her soul, and gave her a solid and sure feeling about her boy. She had seen all that in his eyes.
Well, it appears to be working fine. Angelic not-nagging and avoiding any loud screaming has been as good as a lecture on proper-
He turned around presently, and told her how fast they had been going;
AAAAAAAAAAAA! EYES ON THE ROAD! EYES ON THE ROOOOOAAAD! PULL OVER AND LET ME DRIVE.
And Leslie turned and flung herself into Julia Cloud’s arms with one of her enthusiastic hugs.
Where was she? The passenger's seat? This was probably pre-seatbelt but it's a little jarring to picture.
“No, but I asked about it. They have intercollegiate games and frats, and I guess it’s all right. It has a peach of a campus, too, and a Carnegie library with chimes---”
“Well, but, dear, you aren’t going to college just for those things.”
“Oh, the college’ll be all right. Guardy wouldn’t have suggested it if it wasn’t. But we’ll go up there this morning and look around.”
I suppose people still choose colleges like this, but compared to the modern way it blows my mind. They also choose the house, complete with confusing time-travel shenanigans:
It was indeed a lovely little dwelling. It was built of stone, and then painted white, but the roof and gables were tiled with great pink tiles, giving an odd little foreign look to it, something like Anne Hathaway’s cottage in general contour, Leslie declared.
Cut it out, Anne, you have Oscars to strive for. There is more about the house and its suitable rooms for everyone and its tree-enclosed balcony outside Julia's room. There is oodles about the house, the garage, the work they put into decorating it, and the interior furnishings. Remember "A Little Princess" where the guy remodeled the attic with all kinds of things that made it look better? Kind of like that but with more childish patter and sunbeams and air-filled couch cushions. Then Julia revokes the curtains they were going to buy and decides to make them herself with a sewing-machine that they have to buy. It's all very happy-capitalist.
But into our joyous whirl of buying, making, and decorating, a crash of ugly reality!
“O Leslie, darling child!” she gasped again. “You don’t mean you would work on the Sabbath day!”
“Why, why not, Cloudy, dear? Is there anything wrong about that?”
Other people are not ourselves! This leads to a long over-wrought paragraph I will sum up: This statement made Julia feel faint and dizzy. It was the worst thing! Ever! She was just a small girl from a small town protected by tradition and folkways. It was not here. She had frowned seriously at serious articles saying other people worked Sundays but had never come face-to-face with the problem, which she just couldn't stand up against, she was so overwhelmed. Basically the Angel of the House is up against a danger to her shrine and it is frizzing her wings. Also, she's lucky Grace is the author she is, because if Leslie wanted an abortion she'd die on the spot. This leads to more that is too boring to quote, because the conflict is immediately defused by Allison saying that they are physically hurting Julia by disagreeing. Then they all agree to help themselves learn to enjoy Sunday more. It still isn't over, because now Julia feels responsible for exposing them to the joys of god-worship and agonizes that she can't.
The best part is that the UnSabbathlike work that Leslie wanted to do was sewing some curtains.
“Now see what you’ve done, Leslie!” said her brother sharply. “Cloudy hasn’t looked that way once before. Next thing you know she’ll be washing her hands of us and running off back to Sterling again.”
“O Cloudy!” said the penitent Leslie, flinging herself into her aunt’s arms and nestling there beseechingly. “You wouldn’t do that, would you, Cloudy, dear? No matter how naughty I got? Because you would know I wouldn’t mean it ever. Even if I was real bad.”
If you don't value the Angel of the House enough to change for her, she is up a creek. The two pretend they've always gone to church to avoid causing Julia more physical pain. They go to a lovely spot in the woods for more Bible-reading, where our emotional one-upmanship takes a dark turn:
“Are those happy tears, Cloudy, or the other kind? Tell us quick, or we’ll jump in the creek and drown ourselves,” laughed Leslie; and then two white handkerchiefs, one big and one little, came swiftly out and dabbed at her cheeks until there wasn’t a sign of a tear to be seen.
You can't desert us! We'll commit suicide first! Allison makes the mistake of saying that most missionaries he've seen have been disreputable and the pastor that morning seemed uninspired. Julia immediately reacts like a fly that has fallen into a jug of bleach.
Julia Cloud closed her Bible, and looked down in horror at the frank young face of the boy who minced no words in saying what he thought about these holy things that had always been so precious and sacred to her. She felt like putting her hands over her ears and running away screaming. Her very soul was in agony over the desecration. The children looked into her face, saw the white, scared look, and took warning.
And they smooth it over again. Then they go to Christian Endeavor that night before evening service and there is a LOT of Jesus. Paragraphs and paragraphs of it. Some girl who has a holy light to her face pitches in a couple of times. Near the end we get this:
The meeting closed then; but, while they were singing the last hymn Allison and Leslie were watching the face of the quiet girl with the holy, uplifted light on it.
“I think she is lovely, don’t you?” whispered Leslie after the benediction, as they turned to go out. “I’d like to know her.”
Which means in Romance Land she is now a love interest for one of them, and since Grace Livingstone Hill probably pretended throughout her life to never know homosexuals existed, it's not the girl. We learn she has a tragic past; her father was a forger, her mother died of a broken heart, and she does housework. There's more stuff that hints about the falsity of social strata as long as your manners, speech, and mores are perfectly upper-class, and we whirl off into another chapter. This is chapter fourteen, believe it or not.
“Let’s begin with the kitchen,” said Leslie. “I’m crazy to learn how to make cookies. Cloudy, you’ll teach me how so I can make some all myself, won’t you?”
And we are STILL being haunted by those goddamn cookies. There is more ordering of furnishings! A work-party to clean the cottage! More decorating! Wholesome fun! More Christian Endeavor, turned sideways and jammed in! But Monday morning, something actually happens: visitors! Led by someone that GLH conveys is a dweeby little pill without actually coming out and saying it. The group is the Christian Endeavor committee, who are not endeavoring so well that they don't just ask for help. The problem can be boiled down to "our group is dying, and we can't fix it, because we can't think who to invite because we're useless snobs." Allison fires them up for a bit and then fires off as soon as they leave:
"Why, what did we come here to college for? To run an asylum for sick Sunday schools, I’d like to know? As if I had time to monkey with their little old society! It’s rank nonsense, anyhow! What good do they think they can do, a couple of sissies, and two or three kid vamps, setting up to lisp religion? It’s ridiculous!”
Which suggests that GLH has heard of gay people after all. This is not the only disturbing thing. The other happens after Julia says that Allison reminds her of Moses and Leslie decides that she is Aaron. Julia pitches in:
"And, besides, there’s another thing you’re very much mistaken about, and that is that you haven’t anything to do with the church. When you were a little baby six months old, your father and mother brought you home to our house; and the first Sunday they were there they took you to the old church where all the children and grandchildren had been christened for years, and they stood up and assented to the vows that gave you to God."
And then:
...that ceremony wasn’t just all on your father’s and mother’s part; it entailed some responsibility upon you. It was part of your heritage, and you’ve no right to waste it any more than if it were gold or bank stock or houses and lands. It was your title to a heavenly sonship, and it gave God the right to call upon you to do whatever He wants you to do. It’s between you and God now, and you’ll have to settle it yourself.
Now we're getting into uncomfortable territory. They can threaten to jump into rivers and hint at abandoning each other and so far it's all non-serious enough in tone... but this isn't. So far, in all the theology, people can't give other people to God. Now they can. It's kind of awkward. Grace immediately rescues us from the unpleasant connotations by giving us, in the next chapter, a maid. Everybody ought to have a maid.
To begin with, the room itself was admirably adapted to making the right maid feel at home and comfortable. It had three windows looking into gardens on the next block, and a blaze of salvia and cosmos and geraniums would greet her eyes the first time she looked out from her new room. Then it had a speck of a bathroom all its own, which Julia Cloud felt would go a long way toward making any maid the right maid, for there would be no excuse for her not being clean and no excuse for her keeping her tooth-brush down on the edge of the kitchen sink or taking a bath in the laundry tubs, as she had heard that some of her neighbors’ maids had done at various times.
I run down Grace a lot for her confused social views, but one point she's consistent on is that good work is worthy and laborers should be treated well and respectfully.
The windows were shrouded with white curtains of the same kind as those all over the house, and within were draperies with bright flower borders. The bureau was daintily fitted out, and the bed was spotless and inviting-looking. A cushioned rocking-chair stood beside a small table, with a dainty work-basket on the shelf below; and against the wall were some shelves with a few interesting books and magazines. A droplight with a pretty shade gave a home-like air, and the room was as attractive as any other in the house.
This is better than Julia would get in her sister's home.
As a last touch Julia Cloud laid a neat coarse-print Testament on the table, and then knelt beside the rocking-chair and asked God to make the unknown comer a blessing to their house, and help them all to be a blessing to her.
Which is nice, since we already got the horrifying little idea that people could give other people to God like flower-baskets, and I had visions of them kidnapping the new maid to church and doing the whole living-sacrifice offering thing. And guess what?
As a result, by Wednesday the little gay chamber half-way up the stairs was occupied by a pleasant-faced, sturdy colored girl about eighteen years old, who rejoiced in the name of Cherry, and was at once adopted as part of the new household with the same spirit with which everything else had been done.
The maid that they have made a part of the household is black. All right, one of the first things she does is roll her eyes while speaking in excitement, which I recognise from Finley and early movies as highly stereotyped. She speaks in some kind of broad dialect I have never seen Grace throw herself at before or since, and says "youse," which makes her read a bit like a misplaced mobster. Although she may be part of the new household she does not speak highbrow innately, and therefore she will never be accepted to a similar class level. Still, it's good that the book's little angel-run nest does not discriminate. Most pointedly, while Grace works in a little moralizing that if people would treat all maids this well they wouldn't have trouble getting maids, she does not mention anything about race.
Then, in a confusing bit, Julia immediately teaches Cherry to cook, and she is doing breads, breakfasts, and desserts in no time flat, so it seems "maid" is a "maid of all work." Leslie also cooks bread and decides she will do it once a week. We leave this exhausting hive of domesticity to return to Christian Endeavor. They go reluctantly. They come back happily. In short, everything is roses and paradise as the household follows Julia's guidance in all aspects of life. Until the two kids are about to go out for the evening, and Julia learns where they are going.
“You are going to a dance!” she said in a white, stricken way she had when an anxiety first bewildered her. “To two dances! O my dear Leslie! You--dance, then? I--hadn’t thought of that!”
Sheesh.