The Flower Brides

  “Oh, Gordon,” she said eagerly, “tell me about your day. How did your work go?”

  He told her in detail all that he had been doing and the bright prospects that seemed to be opening up before him in his chosen profession, and she listened as eagerly as any girl would have done, following his day step-by-step, watching his face as he talked. Her boy! Her precious, wonderful boy!

  When they finally went upstairs, and before Gordon lit that light that Diana had seen from her window, he went and stood several minutes looking out on the grassy stretch between the cottage and the mansion and then up at the starry sky speculatively.

  “Of course,” he said to himself, “I suppose I’m a fool.” But whether it was about his work or his mother or what, he did not say, even to himself.

  Chapter 5

  When Diana awoke the next morning, the first thing her eyes looked upon was the crystal vase containing the three pink carnations. A sparkle came to her face as she remembered that it was a new day and there would be the possibility of another flower waiting for her. With eagerness she sat up in her bed and reached out for the flowers, drawing a deep breath of their fragrance. Then suddenly memory came on the breath of perfume and—bang!—the joy went out of her heart and the large dark cloud loomed over her head again. Her father was getting married to Cousin Helen, and they would be coming back tomorrow night! Cousin Helen was coming to stay always!

  The sorrow settled down around her once more, beyond the power of the mysterious blossoms to cheer. She looked around her room and marveled that the draperies could be so pleasant a color and the sun could shine as it had in the past when such sorrow was so near. And then she remembered several things she had planned last night to be done this morning, and she sprang up and began to dress. There was no time to waste. There were still many precious treasures to be put out of sight and packed carefully where they could not be harmed. The menu must be made out for tomorrow night’s dinner; things had to be ordered. Father must be pleased, whether Helen was pleased or not. But the worst of it was to remember that if Helen was pleased that was the thing just now that would most please Father! And oh, that must go on all through life! If life was really going on under such terrible conditions. It didn’t seem as if it could.

  The next two days seemed eons long to Diana, and yet she kept finding so many things she needed to put away or change that they grew frantically short as Wednesday evening drew nearer and she went around breathlessly making the house over to be ready for an enemy. Hour by hour she had continued to hope for another message from her father, but none came. Evidently he was not going to risk even another conversation with her over the telephone. And yet he must know she was suffering, was fairly frantic! How could he do a thing like this to her, without at least talking it over with her and trying to reconcile her to it? Not that she could ever have been really reconciled to it, of course, but it would not have hurt so much if she could have felt that he was thinking a little about her in it all, that he had not just cast the thought of her, his only child, aside as if she didn’t matter in the least. And every time she thought of him the hurt of his stern, angry tones as he had talked over the phone went through her heart again with a wrench that was actual pain. Oh, now added to all the unfairness and indignities of the past, here was this appalling loss staring her in the face. Helen was about to steal her father!

  The roses and the gardenias occupied the big living room and wasted their sweetness alone. Not even Maggie had time to go in and admire them. She, good woman, was intent on making the house spotless from cellar to attic before the new mistress should arrive. If this thing had to be, she would leave no slightest flaw in her work. Not at first would that hussy have a chance to find fault with her, anyway. Or, as she put it to herself, “The master shall have no cause to be ashamed of me, anyway.”

  The master was getting himself a new wife, and things might be so that she would be obliged to leave, but at least she would leave everything in good order.

  When Diana came downstairs she found Maggie wiping off the windows in the living room.

  “They were that dirty!” she said, frowning. “And I don’t want the likes of her to be findin’ fault right at once.”

  Diana winced at the thought and stood staring around the room, which looked bare and alien with so many familiar objects gone. Then suddenly as her glance went over the roses and gardenias, she remembered the carnations. This was the time she had meant to go out and try to discover just when those carnations were dropped! She would go at once before she did anything else. Of course, it might be that there were to be no more carnations, but at least she would go and see if one was there now. She would run no risk of its being picked up by anyone else. So she opened the front door and stepped out in spite of Maggie’s admonition that her breakfast was already on the table.

  “I’ll be back in just a minute,” she called, and she sped away down the drive.

  “Now what can the bairn be after now?” queried Maggie of herself as she came to the window and watched Diana running swiftly as if she were going on some distinct errand with a destination.

  She watched until the girl appeared in sight again and then discreetly withdrew behind a curtain until she reached the house. She was holding a flower in her hand, looking down at it with a lovely look in her face. Now where did that flower come from? Had she brought it downstairs with her? Maggie could distinctly see the flower. It was just like the others that were up in the girl’s room. Where did those flowers come from? Had Diana brought them when she went on her walk yesterday? Or had some other admirer sent them? Maggie took distinct satisfaction in the flowers that had been given to the girl last night. The only thing that troubled her was Diana’s seeming indifference to them. Was she really as indifferent as she seemed? All those gorgeous roses in the living room, all those stately gardenias, and yet here she was putting a mere carnation to her lips as if she loved it. There seemed some mystery here that Maggie would have solved. However, she was industriously dusting when Diana came into the house. But her eyes were wide open, and she noticed that there was no flower in sight as the girl came in. Had she hidden it in her dress?

  Later, when she went up to put Diana’s room to rights, she stood for a long time looking down at the crystal vase with its four pink carnations. Had her eyes deceived her? She was sure there had been only three there yesterday when she dusted. And Diana had run quickly upstairs before she came in to her breakfast.

  On the whole Diana seemed more cheerful after that little run down through the grounds, and Maggie kept reverting to it all day long and turning it over in her mind.

  Diana reverted to it also, wondering, feeling somehow comforted over the unknown friend who had manifested an interest in her just as trouble was coming her way. Of course, she told herself, those flowers might not have been meant for her at all. They might have been dropped for some utterly different reason or just from a happening that had no reason about it at all, by someone who never saw her or even heard of her. But it comforted her to feel that they were meant for her or even just sent from heaven now in her need. Nevertheless, silly as it was for her to make so much out of them, it gave her a thrill to remember they were up in her room waiting for her while she worked at her unpleasant task around the house, her task of obliterating all traces of her beloved mother from the home.

  Down at the stone cottage Mrs. MacCarroll watched for her in vain, and when her son came home that night she had little news of the neighborhood to tell him.

  “The little lady didn’t take a walk today at all,” she told him over the remains of yesterday’s chicken, appearing now in the form of a delicate chicken pie. “I thought I spied her coming out as usual from her front door. I was upstairs making your bed and I saw her come out the door, this time without a hat, and the sun shining on her bonnie hair till it looked golden. She was walking very fast, almost running I thought, and I stopped and watched her run, she is so graceful. I watched her till she disappeared beh
ind the group of trees, and then I went into my room thinking to see her as she came out by the gate into the street. But she didn’t come out, though I watched for some time. She must have gone back another way, perhaps, or have run very fast, for when I went to the back to look out she was gone. But I sighted a bluebird’s nest in the tree just below your window. Did you know it was there? There are three dear little eggs in it, and the mother bird was sitting on the edge of the nest with ravellings of white in her bill.”

  “Oh,” said Gordon, “so we have even nearer neighbors to watch now? That is good. You’ll not be able to call on them, perhaps, but I’ll warrant you’ll be leaving more ravellings on the window sill for that nest. You just can’t let your neighbors alone, can you, Mother?”

  So the two joked away the supper hour trying to forget that there was an empty place at the table where the husband and father had sat in the old home, that would never again be filled by him on this earth. Trying to make cheer for each other while the one went out to struggle with the world and wrest a living from it and a prospect for the future and the other kept the home and marked time till in the plan of God the day of reunion should come.

  The day slowly wore itself away in heartbreaking nothings, and Diana, just before sunset, came to stand by her own front window and looked out at the long slant shadows on the lawn.

  The sun was flashing silver signals of good night to the world on the upper windows of the stone cottage where she had seen the light the night before. The panes of glass looked like molten metal on fire. The light flashed through the trees sharply and quivered into flames again. She felt a poignant pleasure in the brilliancy of sunset and in the dear familiar scene, a pleasure akin to pain it was so sharp. All this scene that was so familiar, so dear, would it be hers very much longer? Or would Helen steal this, too, if she knew it was precious to her?

  She turned and bent her head to the carnations as she was falling into the habit of doing every time she passed them. These, too, if they continued to come, Helen would somehow discover and manage to appropriate or turn into ridicule. She gathered them to her face and laid her lips among their coolness, her lips that quivered with the sorrow of what was about to come. For this day, too, had passed without any further sign from her father. And now, if he had carried out his purpose, he and Helen were undoubtedly married. How the thought wrenched her heart! She turned away suddenly to stop the tears. She dared not weep any more. She could not face tomorrow in a storm of tears. She must be adamant. She must not let Helen see how keenly she felt this whole thing. Helen would gloat over it, anyway. Helen had an uncanny way of finding out how people felt and pressing the thorn into the lacerated heart until it became unbearable.

  She must not let them see her heart. There would be nobody to understand and comfort but Maggie; and if she let poor Maggie understand how she was suffering, Maggie would show her own indignation and Helen would send her out of the house in short order. Perhaps she would, anyway. Then there would be nobody to understand. For there was no hope that her father would ever understand again, not with Helen as his wife. Not as long as Helen chose to keep him blinded to her true character.

  She sat down in the rosy twilight that was filling the room and tried to plan how she was to conduct herself, how to steel herself against the inevitable animosity that she would have to meet from the new mistress of the house; but in spite of herself, she found no way to plan ahead.

  What she really wanted to do, of course, was to run away before they arrived. The nearer she came to their arrival, the more her heart cried out for freedom to go. But something fine in her would not let her do it. She must stand by her father even though he had not been fair to her.

  The more she considered his action, the more the fact stood out that the sharpest hurt of the whole matter, outside of the stunning fact itself, was that her father had made the thing inevitable before he had even intimated to her that such a change was possible. In a matter that so deeply affected her own life and happiness she felt she had a right to have been informed at least, if not consulted, before everything was determined. In a way, it had lowered her father in her eyes, though she struggled against such a thought, that he had not had the courage to talk it over with her. He had thrust it upon her without the courtesy of allowing her to put her own case before him. It was not fair to her, and sometime surely he would know it and be ashamed. Just now he was angry; and if she should run away, he would only think that she was angry, and she was not. She was only appalled and hurt. More deeply hurt than she had ever been before in her life. Even her mother’s death had not given her a hurt like this. It was as if all that her father had ever been to her had been erased, wiped out of her life and love. As if he had never been what she had thought she loved.

  Diana was young and inexperienced, of course. She forgot that human nature is never perfect. She had idolized her father, and now he had done something that showed a weakness in him. She did not know that a clever woman can influence a wonderful man to do a foolish thing, under the guise of righteousness. She had no notion that Helen had subtly worked on her prey to make him believe that what they were doing was largely for the good of sweet, little, motherless Diana, and that she meant to devote her life to making her happy so that when Diana went away by and by to the home of some marvelous husband she would carry a precious memory of her home. It was good, perhaps, that she did not know all that that wily serpent of a Helen had said on different occasions to her troubled bridegroom, until she had brought him to see Diana and their life and even his own actions in a new light. It was not that he had lost his love for his precious daughter, nor that another love had superseded it. It was only that his horizon and his love had widened to take in Helen that they all might be happy together. That was what the father was thinking, and he was amazed and hurt that his child could not see how beautifully it was all going to work out for everybody.

  But Diana had seen only his anger, and she was hurt to the core. Yet her conscience would not let her go away before he came. Not yet. She would stay and show him that she had done her best—if that were possible. Her best with Helen present had always been her worst in spite of her best efforts. But, anyhow, she must stay and face the battle, at least until she was utterly defeated.

  So she went down the stairs to satisfy Maggie and pretend to eat something, and then endure another night before the dawning of her evil day.

  That night she drowned her pillow in tears, and when she was roused by the telephone to give Bobby Watkins a decided answer to his invitation for Wednesday evening, her voice was shaky with emotion.

  “I’m sorry, Bobby. I wish I could go,” she said with an honest ring to her voice. If only things were not as they were, how gladly would she go anywhere with Bobby for an evening, if that could have brought back the happy past wherein she and her father lived in a charmed world of their own.

  Wednesday morning dawned with a cruelly bright sun. It hurt Diana as she opened her eyes and took in the glory of the morning.

  The first thought that met her waking soul was that her father was married. He had taken someone in Mother’s place! It hit her in the heart and between the eyes, as a blow might have done. But she winked back the tears that rushed ready for a deluge and shut her lips tightly. She just must not give way today at all or she could not go through the ordeal tonight.

  She turned her eyes resolutely toward the carnations and drew a deep breath. Then the wonder came, would there be another flower this morning? How early were they put there? She would run out now, right away, and see. Perhaps she could catch the fairy at her work. She just must think of pleasant things until tonight was over or she would die. She felt as if she were bleeding in her heart. Controlled tears turned inward and drained the life, but she must not weep today.

  She sprang from her bed and, dressing quickly, slipped out of the house before Maggie knew she was awake.

  The dew was on the turf by the little path that skirted the edge of the driveway, and i
t caught the morning light and hung bright jewels on each blade of grass.

  Diana could not help but feel the beauty of the day as she hurried down the road, despite her heavy heart. It was as if she were going into the secret places of the morning, to the treasury of the world’s jewels, where a diamond or an amethyst or a ruby flashed out a greeting to her as she passed and sapphires nodded blue sparkles to the fire of opals.

  Just this side of the group of trees that hid the cottage from view she thought she heard a stirring, and she walked softly, shyly, hesitating an instant. Was she coming upon the secret of her mysterious flowers, and did she want to be disillusioned? Did she want to discover how they came there, if perchance the donor was passing now?

  On the other hand, perhaps the flowers were meant for someone else who was missing them because she had come in before and taken them. If she went on now, would there be a clue that would destroy this bit of romance, the only hint of real romance that had so far come into her life?

  Only an instant she hesitated, then her common sense asserted itself and she went forward. If there were so sensible an explanation of all this, she had better know it now and get this nonsense out of her head. With all this trouble she was probably making too much of just a few plain carnations.

  So she went on, rounding the group of shrubs that hid the place where she usually found the flowers. Then she heard the sound of a door closing at the back of the cottage. Was that a step? Probably just someone in the cottage shed that opened this way.

  She paused, and her eyes sought the grass by the gravel path. Yes, there it lay, close by the walk, its face looking up from the grass. It was in the shadow, but there was a flash of jewels all about the dew. And—were those footprints in the dewy grass? They trailed away to a bare place around the roots of a tree then disappeared in a series of disconnected spots irregularly leading toward the cottage. Was it conceivable that the flowers came from the cottage? But of course not. There was only an old lady living there with her boy, Maggie had said. No young boy would go dropping flowers around for sentiment’s sake, and certainly his mother wouldn’t be likely to do it. Besides, those footprints were probably made by a dog not a human, and, anyway, they weren’t near enough to the flower to count, unless someone stood at a distance and threw the flower there.