The Flower Brides

  “Are you going to marry that man, Camilla?” she asked suddenly.

  “Oh, Mother! What a question! Why! Why—I don’t even know that he would want me to marry him! Why, I’m not thinking about marrying people, Mother!”

  And suddenly Camilla burst into tears and buried her face in her mother’s neck.

  Loving arms went around her and loving lips were laid against her hot, wet cheek.

  “There, there, dear!” soothed her mother gently. “I just thought I ought to remind you that it is a woman’s business to be aware of such things and not let a man go too far if she does not intend to go all the way to the altar with him! It looked to me as if he was expecting a lot of you, my dear, and I wondered if you were ready to choose him for life, if you were really satisfied with him. He is a good man, I guess, but—I wondered if you were sure, sure beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he is the one you want. You know, a woman should be sure! That’s the only thing that makes marriage happy; it’s the only thing that makes it tolerable!”

  And Camilla clung to her mother, trembling, quivering in every nerve, shot through with questionings and doubts, and trying not to remember a kiss that had gone deep into her soul. She thought that if it only hadn’t been for that kiss, she might have been able to think more clearly.

  Chapter 21

  The plaything that Stephanie Varrell had found on the beach that afternoon had proved to be more than usually interesting, and before Jeffrey Wainwright’s return to civilization she had used her jacinth eyes to such an extent that she was wearing a strange golden stone on her finger with a curious fire in its heart, set in workmanship of the far orient, and there was much gossip abroad, for Stephanie and her “Count” were seen constantly together.

  Yet it had not been a part of her plan to have Jeff come upon them just where and how he did.

  She had been accustomed to use certain tactics with Jeffrey that she found always worked. Invariably, she had been able to bring him back to her feet whenever she wished, and she had never let him drift quite so far away before.

  But something had happened the night of that dinner of hers that she did not understand, and she was playing high stakes now to undo what she had dared to do in inviting Myles Meredith. There was nothing like rousing jealousy in a man’s heart to bring him to terms, Stephanie firmly believed, never having read aright the fine soul of Jeff. She had never sensed that, instead of being merely jealous for himself, he was jealous for her reputation and his ideal of her, which he had made himself and cherished for genuine.

  But Jeff came home just after the sun had dropped the velvet curtain of night down upon golden Florida and driven the guests of the hotel to their rooms to dress for dinner and the evening.

  Then Jeff came down late to dinner, escaping a good many people whom he wasn’t in a hurry to meet. He took a walk on the veranda after dinner with his mother. He sat for a while with her in the softness and darkness of the evening, talking, telling her some things about his brother Sam he thought she ought to know, how the boy was developing character and an interest in certain studies that should be fostered. He kept feeling around and wondering how he should tell her of his new experience. Was it the right time? Would she understand? In all his life he had had very little real heart conversation with his mother. She had a cold, reticent nature, taking certain things for granted, ignoring certain other things. He had a feeling that perhaps she would not approve, might perhaps think he was becoming fanatical. He greatly desired, when he did tell her, to do it so that she would be impressed with the deep reality of his new experience.

  “Mother,” he said at last after a long silence broken only by the regular sound of the sea breaking on the sand not far away, “I’ve been thinking things out while I was away in the woods, and I’ve made some decisions.”

  His mother stopped rocking in the big willow chair, with a short, sharp little sound of quietness as if she had feared something and thought it might be coming now. She wondered if it was that yellow-haired girl with the strange, sly eyes? Or was he wanting to go and kill lions in Africa? Some new sensation, of course!

  “The most important decision,” he went on, “is that I’ve become a Christian!”

  He had thought it all out and had decided that this was the best way to express it to his mother. She wouldn’t at all understand if he should say he had been born again. She might even resent it, as if his birth had not been good enough for him. She had a strange, deep pride of family. The word Christian he felt sure she would understand to a certain extent, and it was still, of course, perfectly respectable. As the world, her world, counted respectability.

  His mother was still, holding the rocker motionless for a full second while she thought it over. Then she answered calmly. “That’s all right with me, Jeff, just so you don’t make too much of it. I’d hate to have a child with a religious complex. Of course, a little religion doesn’t hurt anybody if it’s kept within bounds.”

  Jeff sat silent for a long time after that, realizing just how little his mother would be in sympathy with his new life, yet feeling that he had no further word for her at present.

  Presently Mrs. Wainwright drew her soft wrap around her shoulders with a little shiver and rose. Suddenly leaning over her son, she patted his dark head with an unaccustomed caress and said, “You always were a good boy, Jeff!”

  Then after an instant, “Come, I’m going in. There’s too much breeze out here for me.”

  He escorted her into the hotel where she settled down among a group of her kind, and with a graceful good night he left her and sauntered out to the patio again, stalking down the full length and across the sea end.

  The ballroom was that way, down along the north side of the building, and dancing was going on inside, but a glance showed the patio entirely empty just then, a long stretch of darkness broken by the rectangles of light from the open windows and lit not at all except by one single lamp at the far end. Jeff strolled on, keeping out near the railing. He did not want company just then. He had some serious thinking to do. He would just walk by and glance in the windows and see who of the old crowd was there. He was suddenly beginning to realize that life was going to have some very decided changes for him in the near future. His old world was not going to recognize what had happened to him. They were not going to understand. They were not his world anymore. He had been born into a new world.

  He walked slowly, quietly, the sound of the beating waves and the throb of the orchestra covering his deliberate footfalls.

  Pausing an instant to glance through a window, he was startled to hear a light, familiar laugh coming from out of the shadows quite near him, and turning sharply, he saw one of the glider seats with which the place abounded, drawn slantwise into the shadow so that the occupants could get a full view of the ballroom without themselves being very visible to those inside the windows, and there they sat quite oblivious to any but themselves. They had evidently not heard his approach, for they were absorbed in each other. He could see the gold of the girl’s hair, crowned with a sparkling jeweled tiara, the lifted face with the offered lips, and the gleam of her white arm as she threw it around the neck of her companion, a tall man who bent a comely head above her and embraced her passionately. Stephanie! And he had just been thinking about her!

  He had just been considering that in some sort he was entangled with her, or he had at one time asked her to marry him. True, she had not answered him, had put him off time after time, laughingly. But she was capable of making trouble about it if she chose. He had been perplexing himself over it, wondering what was his duty now. For he understood himself well enough to know that she was not for him. He had been hoping that she might have gone back north, but now here she was, not three feet from him, and lying in another man’s arms! If Jeffrey Wainwright had any of his former illusions left about Stephanie Varrell, they were dispelled at once. Her whole attitude, her soft, honeyed, purring tones, the caresses she was showering upon the man, made it quite pl
ain that Stephanie was not in love with Jeffrey. And suddenly his heart leaped with a thankful throb. Here at last was absolute evidence. He had feared that perhaps, after all, he had misjudged her and that her association with other men against his protest was really as innocent as she had always declared. He did not wish to be unjust. But here was the evidence of his own eyes.

  Well, what should he do now? Get away without their seeing him, of course, if it could be done. But could it? The music had stopped for the moment.

  He made a quick stealthy movement with one foot, to back away, keeping his eyes upon the two on the couch. But he did not realize that someone had piled a couple of chairs in a rocker just behind where he was standing. His foot came in sharp contact with the point of the rocker, and the rocker being set in motion, the two smaller chairs came crashing down to the floor noisily.

  It was all over in an instant. The two people in the porch seat sat up sharply, staring at him, and Jeff came out of the darkness and up to them at once with a grave bow.

  “Sorry to intrude,” he said with easy courtesy. “I did not know that anyone was here. Don’t let me interrupt!” And with a significant glance at Stephanie, he turned and walked deliberately away. As he went he carried the memory of Stephanie’s eyes, jacinth eyes, gleaming in the dark like cat’s eyes.

  He had almost rounded the sea end of the patio when he heard a scurrying sound behind him of feet running, and the two were upon him, Stephanie’s light, heartless laugh ringing out.

  “Jeff! Oh, Jeff! Wait!” she called, and reaching his side, she slid her arm within his own, as she had so often done before, with that soft little confiding air that had at one time meant so much to him.

  “I want to tell you the news and introduce you to my fiancé,” she said eagerly. “This is Count Esterhoff, Jeff, and we were just engaged tonight! He knows all about you, of course. And I want you to see my wonderful, curious ring! There isn’t another like it in all the world!”

  Jeff paused politely in the light of the next window to acknowledge the introduction and to survey the weird ring, whose setting of strange serpents curiously intertwined with uncanny symbols smacked of aged, pagan worlds. The newly made fiancé, who hadn’t known his fate until that moment, stood there blinking and staring at the girl who had just so unexpectedly become engaged to him.

  “Congratulations!” said Jeff, with a delighted grin. “That’s splendid news. Delighted to meet you, Count. And say, that’s some ring! An heirloom, I take it. A most unusual setting, isn’t it?”

  He lingered a minute or two chatting, adding a few more polite phrases, and then excused himself from the scene lest his overwhelming relief became too painfully obvious. He hurried away and disappeared by a roundabout route to his room.

  He had been calmly sleeping for what seemed to him many hours when his telephone roused him, and Stephanie’s voice, amazingly meek and tearful, called him from his pleasant dreams.

  “Jeff, is that you? This is Stephanie, Jeff, and I’m so unhappy—!”

  There was a silence during which Jeff got awake enough to visualize once more the scene he had witnessed on the north patio a few hours before.

  “Isn’t that too bad!” he said at last, a note of mocking in his voice.

  “Now, Jeff, if you knew how unhappy I am you wouldn’t try to be unkind,” reproached the markedly humble voice at the other end of the wire.

  Jeff was still, trying to think hard. Then he spoke in his clear, firm voice, with finality in its very fiber.

  “I’m not trying to be unkind, Stephanie. I’m just puzzled to know what I have to do with all this. It can’t be many hours since you told me you were engaged to another man, and I should think this matter of your unhappiness would be referred to him.”

  “But Jeff, darling!” She spoke the word in a tone that always used to move him deeply, and he marveled that it no longer stirred him in the least. There were sobs in her voice now and unmistakable tears. He frowned in the darkness and drew a deep breath of annoyance.

  “Suppose—Jeff—” sobbed the voice softly, “that I’ve found I’ve—made—a terrible—mistake!”

  “Then I would think that would be entirely up to you!” he answered crisply. “I certainly haven’t anything to do with it.”

  “Yes—you have, Jeff!” went on the pleading voice. “Have you forgotten—Jeff, I know you haven’t—that you asked me—to—marry you once? Jeff, I’ve seen my mistake—and—I want to tell you—b-b-before it’s forever—too late! Jeff, it’s you I love. And I’ll marry you, Jeff darling, tonight, if you’ll take me! I could be ready in half an hour. There’s an airplane out on the field. I’ve chartered it, and we could go on that. And then all my troubles would be over! I should be ecstatically happy! Oh, Jeff—darling—will you go tonight? You are such a comforting person—”

  “Nothing doing!” said Jeffrey. “That was all off the night of your dinner. You chose then between me and that low-life villain, Meredith Myles. And if I had needed anything else, tonight would have been the finishing touch. You’ll have to go elsewhere for comfort, Stephanie. I’m going to sleep, and I don’t wish to discuss this matter any further, either now or at any future time. Good night!” And Jeffrey Wainwright hung up the receiver and turned over in his bed.

  But he did not go back to sleep. He held a court and judged himself. He had learned while out on that camping trip that if we would judge ourselves we should not have to be disciplined by God. So then and there he held court and found himself guilty. He looked back over his young manhood and saw himself a selfish time-waster, a chaser of every new fancy, a lazy spendthrift and good-for-nothing, and a spoiled child of luxury, playing with every toy that came his way. Of course, he had had certain standards and adhered to them fairly well, but within limits he had been determined to have whatever his fancy chose. And Stephanie had been one of those things.

  That she had been dangerous he had known from the start. That she had been full of deception he had often suspected. That she could do about what she chose with him, at one time he had rather enjoyed. He had always known that she was not the kind of woman to bring into his family. That she would have to change before his mother, whom he was fond of, would ever accept her as a daughter, and before his father, whom he greatly revered and loved, would honor her. But he had blindly gone ahead, determined that she should somehow be made to conform to the Wainwright standards, convinced that when she was his, and he flung his love around her and enthroned her in his home, she would be everything that he would ask her to be.

  He had known for a long time now that he was a fool to believe any such thing. The first time he saw Camilla he knew that the look in her eyes was the one he had been so long hoping to see in Stephanie’s eyes. The night he dared to lay his lips to Camilla’s in that precious kiss he knew that this was something rare and fine in love that he had never found in his infatuation for Stephanie. Tonight down on the hotel patio, the last shred and vestige of respect for Stephanie had vanished.

  He lay a long time considering his present situation. Suddenly he snapped on the light and looked at his watch. Then he hunted a number in the telephone book and called it.

  “Is that you, John? Are you still up studying? I hoped so. Well, this is Jeff. May I come out to your place tomorrow morning early and help you spray orange trees or whatever it is that you went home to do to them? I don’t know how, but I’ll learn, and I’ve got a few questions I need to ask you.”

  “That’s great news, Jeff,” came back the voice over the wire. “Bring on your questions! Wear your old clothes, and be prepared to sleep in a hammock. I’ll be waiting to welcome you at the head of the lane with open arms.”

  Jeff wrote a note to his mother.

  Dear Mother:

  I’m leaving early in the morning for a few days with a friend. You can reach me by phone at the above number, but please don’t inform anybody else.

  If Dad wires, let me know at once, and if you need me I can be back in less t
han an hour.

  Yours,

  Jeff

  Then he turned out the light and went to sleep again.

  Quite early the next morning before any stray damsels were abroad, Jeff arose and went on his way to see John Saxon.

  Chapter 22

  Miss York duly moved in, bag and baggage, as soon as the last big snow of the season was melted and gone, and though she was still engaged on a case and was able to be there very little, it gave a comfortable family feeling to have the extra room furnished and ready for use whenever she should be able to get off for a night.

  She turned up the very night after Camilla had cried on her mother’s shoulder, and she announced that she had come to stay over the weekend.

  They had a cheery little supper together and were anticipating a real home evening, leisurely laughing and talking as they did the dishes and suggesting how the furniture could be arranged in Miss York’s room to best advantage.

  And then right in the middle of it Whitlock arrived.

  He had been away in New York and had attended a large political meeting and met some interesting people. He wanted to tell about it. He enjoyed telling things and liked an attentive audience.

  Camilla felt a disappointment as she opened the door and saw him standing there. She had supposed he would be gone over Sunday. She was wearing a plain little old dress, expecting to help Miss York put up her curtains.

  She invited him in, a constraint upon her because of what her mother had said the night before, but Whitlock was full of his experiences and did not notice her silence.

  “Well,” he said, taking off his overcoat and hat and hanging them on the hall rack as if he belonged there, “it is good to get back. Where’s your mother? Aren’t the dishes done yet?”

  It was characteristic of Whitlock that he had never attempted to go into the kitchen and help, though he had several times been a guest to a meal.