The Flower Brides

  “I’m fired! Can you beat it?” asserted Marietta, as if it were something almost beyond her comprehension.

  “Oh, Marietta!” cried Camilla sympathetically, “not really?” And suddenly Camilla took in the full possibilities, which might involve her also. Her heart began to sink. And here she had been congratulating herself on the fact that she was invited out to lunch with her employer to be consulted about office affairs and was therefore immune to this danger! How did she know but this would be his polite way of breaking the news to her, a little less abruptly than the method he had used with Marietta because she had been introduced by an old friend and was from his hometown? That was probably it! He was taking her out and explaining to her why he had to make changes in his office force! Consternation spread over her face also, but she managed a tender look of commiseration for Marietta.

  “Oh, Marietta, I’m so sorry!” she said as she saw the big tears begin to rain down the poor girl’s face.

  “You aren’t fired, too, are ya?” Marietta paused in her grief to inquire sobbingly. “’Cause if you are I’m gonta tell him what I think of him. You aren’t, are ya?”

  “Not yet,” said Camilla bravely, trying to manage a wan smile, “but I’ll probably come next. But anyway, I’ll do all I can to help you get another job, whether I’m dismissed or not.”

  “Say—you’re—all—r-r-right!” sobbed Marietta. “I’ll—always re-remember—you—saying that! But—maybe you won’t get fired. Mebbe he means ta make you do all your work and mine, too!” she blubbered noisily. “He’s mebbe cutting down on expenses like everybody else, an’ he’s keeping you ’cause you’re the most ef-f-f-ficient! Oh, I know you are! I never was m-m-much—g-g-good!”

  “Don’t talk that way, Marietta. I’m sure if you would just put your mind to it you could be as efficient as anybody.”

  “Oh, I know,” said Marietta hopelessly, “that’s what they told me the last place I worked. But some days I just can’t! Life is so awful dull, just working! I havta have some excitement! I can’t help thinkin’ of other things besides just work. If I didn’t I’d die! I haven’t got dates and fellas like other girls! I’m not good-looking like you are. Nobody cares a hang about me!”

  “Oh, don’t say that, Marietta!” said Camilla pityingly. “I’m sure little Ted is fond of you.”

  “Oh yes, poor kid!” said Marietta hopelessly. “But what’s he? And he wouldn’t care a hang, either, if he had another soul in the world to turn to. He wouldn’t look at me if his mother paid any attention to him.”

  “Oh yes he would,” consoled Camilla. “Children aren’t like that; they respond with love when love comes to them, I’m sure, and you’ve given him love. He must love you.”

  “Oh, well, he’s the only one anyhow. There isn’t another soul in the wide world cares about me.”

  “Yes,” said Camilla softly, thoughtfully, “there is another One who cares a great deal! He cares so much that He came down here to die for you. He loves you more than even a mother could love!”

  Marietta stared at her.

  “Whaddya mean?” she asked, getting out her handkerchief to mop her face.

  “I mean the Lord Jesus Christ. Marietta, He really loves you and takes account of every single thing in your life.”

  Marietta’s expression was incredulity, and a deep gloom settled down over her homely face.

  “Then what does He let me lose my job for, if He loves me so much? Why did He let that happen?” she asked belligerently. “Naw, you can’t make me believe that bunk! Look at all the rotten times I’ve had. If He cares, why would He let all that come to me?”

  “Perhaps to make you listen to Him,” said Camilla thoughtfully.

  Marietta turned to her fellow worker—her swollen tear-stained face on which the cheap makeup was badly streaked—and stared.

  “Listen to Him? What in the world can you mean?”

  Camilla spoke eagerly.

  “You know, God speaks to every one of us. He wants to make us hear His voice, and sometimes when everything is going beautifully and we’re having a good time, we just won’t listen. We never even think of Him! I think very likely that is often why He has to take everything away from us for a while, so we can hear His voice in our hearts.”

  Marietta looked at her in bewilderment.

  “But what would He want of us?”

  “He wants us to love Him! He wants our companionship and love!”

  Marietta shook her head.

  “Not me!” she said decidedly. “He wouldn’t want me! Nobody wants me. I’m not good-looking, and I’m not good. I’m a devil, I tell ya, a little devil! Why, Camilla Chrystie, I’m a sinner!”

  “Yes,” said Camilla sweetly, “but we’re all that, and Jesus said He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

  “Aw! Sinner nothing. Everybody ain’t the same kind of a sinner. You don’t know what I mean by sin! Why, I’ve lied, and I’ve stolen—I stole some money off my stepmother once ta get a box of candy fer little Ted when she had slapped him! And I’ve hated! I’ve hated her so hard I could have killed her ef I’d had a chance, yes, and been glad of it! Oh, you don’t know what a sinner I’ve been! He wouldn’t want me except ta punish me, and I s’pose that’s what He’s doing now.”

  “But you don’t understand, Marietta; single sins don’t make us sinners, they only prove we’re sinners. We sin because we’re sinners. There is only one sin, anyway, that can keep you from God, and that is unbelief, refusing God’s Son as your Savior.”

  Marietta was silent, almost thoughtful for a long minute, staring at Camilla.

  “I’d believe all righty ef He’d just give me back my job!”

  Camilla shook her head.

  “We can’t make conditions with God. We’ve got to take His conditions. He says belief must come first, belief accepts salvation. Why, if you know somebody loves you, you’re not afraid to trust them to do their best for you. And God’s best for you may be a great deal better than anything you have dreamed of for yourself.”

  Marietta looked uncertainly at Camilla and slowly sat down in her chair, staring off into space sorrowfully.

  “I can’t see it,” she said, shaking her head hopelessly.

  “You don’t have to see it,” said Camilla. “You just have to trust Him and let Him prove it to you.”

  Camilla leaned over and picked up the check from the floor, laying it in Marietta’s lap. Marietta looked down at it with a long quivering sigh.

  “He’s paid me for the whole month,” she said sadly, fingering the check. “I s’pose that’s the last money I’ll get the feel of for many a day! He says I can leave tamorra morning ef I want! But gosh! What’ll I do?”

  Bang went her head down on her typewriter again, and she began to cry afresh.

  Camilla went over and patted her rough, crimped head gently. She felt very pitiful toward her. She almost forgot that she herself might be presently in the same predicament.

  “Come, dear,” she said suddenly, stooping over and smoothing Marietta’s stiff locks away from her hot forehead, “let’s get back to work. This won’t make things any better. We’ve got to finish up this day’s work honorably, whatever comes!”

  “Not me!” said Marietta, looking up with flashing eyes. “I’ll not do another stroke for the old snake!”

  “Oh yes you will, Marietta. You’d only be justifying his dismissal if you do that. Come, let’s get to work and see who will finish first.”

  Suddenly Camilla followed an impulse and, stooping over, kissed Marietta’s hot forehead gently.

  Marietta stared back.

  “What did you do that for?” she asked, fixing Camilla with her dark, haunted eyes.

  “Why, I guess because I loved you and felt sorry for you,” said Camilla with sudden surprise at herself.

  “You couldn’t!” said Marietta. “That’s impossible for you to love me! Why should you love me?”

  “Why, I guess it’s b
ecause you are dear to my Lord Jesus,” said Camilla, taking knowledge of her heart and realizing that she was speaking the truth. This unattractive girl had suddenly become surprisingly dear to her. “Whatever is dear to my Lord is dear to me!”

  Marietta considered that a moment, and then she said, speaking slowly, with a kind of awe in her voice, “Well, if you really mean that, and you want me to, then I guess I’ve gotta do what you said. But I don’t know’s I know how ta do it.”

  “You just tell Him so!” said Camilla, with a sudden joy in her heart that drove out all her fears and perplexities and put her in touch with another world.

  “You mean pray?” asked Marietta, embarrassed. “Right here? Now?”

  Camilla nodded.

  Down went Marietta’s head on her machine again, and there was silence. Then in a moment more she lifted her face with a kind of shamed look on it, and yet a deep relief.

  “I did!” she said almost sheepishly, as if she were playing a child’s game.

  “Good!” said Camilla. “And I’ve prayed, too! Now, let’s get to work and make up for lost time!”

  For a couple of hours the two machines clattered away without interruption, and Camilla knew by the sound that Marietta was really doing her best. Then suddenly they heard Mr. Whitlock’s steps coming down the hall, and for an instant both girls held their breath and fell to trembling. Then Camilla realized that her strength was in her Lord and she must go on working. He would take care of whatever was to come.

  But Mr. Whitlock gave no sign that he had noticed them. He took his mail and read it and then called Camilla to take dictation.

  Camilla was glad to notice that Marietta did not stop for even the lifting of an eyelash but went steadily on with her work. She gave her a furtive glance once, while Mr. Whitlock was looking in his drawer for a paper he wanted enclosed in a certain letter, and saw that Marietta’s eyes were still red and her face badly streaked with makeup that had been much smeared during her weeping, but she was evidently set to do her best, for that one morning at least.

  It was exactly twelve o’clock when Mr. Whitlock finished dictation, closed his desk, and said briskly, “That will be all this morning, Miss Chrystie!”

  Then he swung his chair around toward Marietta’s corner.

  “You might go to lunch now, Miss Pratt,” he said in his usual curt office voice. “Miss Chrystie will have some copy ready for you by the time you return. I’d like you to do one hundred individual copies using the addresses in this list. Miss Chrystie will go to lunch as soon as she has the copy ready for you, and if she hasn’t returned when you get here, you’ll find full directions on your desk. I want this work done, finished, by four o’clock sharp!”

  “Yessir!” said Marietta meekly, casting a frightened glance at Camilla. She got her hat and coat and hurried out. Camilla wondered if perhaps she would not bother to return.

  Whitlock gathered up some papers and went out without any further word, and Camilla wondered if he had already forgotten about taking her to lunch. However, it was only twelve. But his brusque manner to Marietta made her uneasy.

  She snapped a new sheet of paper into her machine and went on with her work, trying to keep her mind from worrying about the coming interview. Praying for strength to bear whatever it should be. Praying, too, for poor Marietta.

  She had scarcely finished the copy for Marietta when the door swung open and Mr. Whitlock entered, gave a quick glance around the room, then came over to her desk. There was that friendly smile again, that disturbing smile that seemed more intimate with her than he really was. That smile that reminded her of another man who didn’t resemble him in the least and yet who could smile deep down into her soul. Oh, was she always to be tormented by this vision, and just because of an unfortunate kiss? She must somehow manage to get rid of this obsession and see nothing but Mr. Whitlock in that smile, and not another’s eyes smiling through his. Besides, this was business and might prove pretty important business at that. She must put her mind upon it. Perhaps it would mean promotion, a larger salary, if she conducted this interview wisely, or it might mean losing her job if she did not. She was pretty well convinced, however, that it meant the latter.

  “Are you ready?” he asked in his friendly tone, so different from the one he had used all the morning that Camilla smiled in relief.

  “Yes, just a moment till I arrange these papers for Marietta,” she answered.

  He held the door open for her deferentially, and again she was struck with a memory of Wainwright. Were all cultured men alike in the way they attended a lady, the way they held open a door? That was it, of course. She was remembering how Wainwright had done everything. Until Wainwright came it had been so long since she had been attended anywhere by a gentleman that she had forgotten the feel of it, and now she was just remembering how nice it was to be taken care of. That was all. It wasn’t Wainwright she was remembering; it was culture and good times and all that belonged to just ordinary social intercourse. She had been too much apart from people, too much filled with her own problems, and now just this little bit of social life, going out to lunch with her employer for a business talk to save time, was getting entirely out of perspective. Well, she must snap out of this. She might be going out to get her dismissal, and if so, she must have her wits about her and take it with her head up.

  Chapter 12

  Jeffrey Wainwright was writing a letter.

  The room where he sat looked out on a sunlit sea, and the breeze that came in the window and wafted the delicate curtains was laden with the mingled perfume of many flowers. On a tray at his hand a cooling drink frostily invited him and a big dish of tropical fruit stood on a table not far away.

  Down below, beyond the terraces of the hotel, there were fountains playing, and tall palm trees waved their graceful fingers above mosaic walks and tiled pools. Off in the distance one could see the beach already dotted with eager bathers, some lying like porpoises, well browned in the gleaming sand. Farther on were the tennis courts where a couple of world-renowned champions were to play a match game that afternoon, and farther inland some of the best of fairways awaited his attention. Cars shot here and there on the hard, smooth roads; cheerful voices called to one another; bright garments attracted the eye; birds sang unearthly sweet carols; slow gulls floated lazily over a summer sea, hovered and floated again; little ships like toys lay in the harbor or floated afar on the blue—whether sea or sky, who could say?—and merry youth awaited and grew impatient. Yet Jeffrey Wainwright sat in his room writing a letter to Camilla. Camilla, who was driving away on her typewriter at mad speed, trying to forget him and suffering as only a girl can suffer who sees all the things she wants one by one drifting away from her.

  A uniformed servant with a silver tray tapped at the door and delivered a note and a telegram, and waited deferentially for the young man to read them. He tore open the telegram and read the message: CAN’T POSSIBLY GET DOWN THERE THIS MONTH. YOU’LL HAVE TO CARRY ON A LITTLE LONGER. DAD. Then he took up the note and glanced at its unintelligible, scrawled summons. He knew it was a summons without reading its particular form and threw it carelessly down on the table.

  “That’s all right, Tyler,” he said to the waiting servant. “No answer.”

  “Excuse me, Mister Wainwright,” said the boy. “Miss Varrell said I was not to come down without an answer.”

  “All right, Tyler,” he said with a frown, “then tell her I can’t come at present. Tell her not to wait for me. Tell her to go on without me.”

  The servant left, and Wainwright went back to his letter. “Dear Camilla,” he wrote, and then he paused to look distantly at the sea and conjure up the vision of Camilla. And every time he almost got sight of her off there against the blue, she turned into Stephanie, with her jacinth eyes, imperious smile, and red, red lips. Camilla’s eyes were deep, deep brown, and her lips were touched with rose as they should be, not painted vivid fleshly red like a bleeding gash. Yet every time he tried to thin
k the vision through and get a flash of Camilla herself, Stephanie came jarring through. It was like trying to sing a sweet new tune that yet had some notes of an old outworn one that would keep coming in and making discord. Why could he not see her face? It was almost as if Camilla were only a figment of his imagination. Yet she had haunted his thoughts until he sat down to write to her, and now she would not seem real to him.

  Dear Camilla. He looked at the words and poised his pen. There were things in his heart that he knew he must not write. Things that were not yet in words, not even consciously in thoughts, but yet he had to write to her.

  He wanted to write and let her know that there was a good reason why he did not come to her, but very likely she had not noticed that he had not. He had no reason to think she would care one way or the other. No reason except that there was something between them, an unspoken something that passed in that kiss he had given her. When he thought of it, he had to close his eyes, it seemed so holy to him. It seemed to mark a time in his life, an epoch that could never be forgotten, a something like a pledge from him to her, and yet he did not exactly know what that pledge was, only that it was a pledge, and he meant to keep it.

  If he closed his eyes from looking at the sea to see her lovely face and her golden hair against the blue, he could feel again the thrill of that kiss, like no kiss he had ever given or received before. It made all other kisses seem common and unclean. This was something quite holy and apart. It was not only a pledge, a tie, between him and the girl to whom he had given it, but it went deeper; it pledged something far beyond, something spiritual that he could not understand. It was as if a door had opened when his lips touched hers and he had seen in a far and lovely place where things were not all as they were in the rest of this sordid earth. Where everything had meaning and life was a greater thing than most men saw; it reached deeper and farther and had no end.

  He understood that there were things for him to learn, though he did not know what they were. They were vaguely associated with words that she had spoken, though he could not always remember the phrases she had used. He only knew there was something she had that he must have.