The Flower Brides

by Grace Livingston Hill

  Then she realized that her caller had asked her a question.

  “You weren’t listening!” he charged her crossly. “I asked you if I might not see your father and talk it over with him. I’m quite sure he would be willing to let me have you for Wednesday evening. You don’t go out half enough. I’ve heard several of your friends say that. Won’t you call him, Diana, and let me ask him?”

  “He isn’t here,” said Diana. “He’s not coming back till Wednesday sometime. And no, I can’t reach him by telephone now, not unless he calls up. I don’t know where he is tonight. But, you see, he called up this morning and—gave me directions. He’s—bringing someone—a lady—home to dinner. That is, he thought he might—and, of course, you know I would have to be here.”

  “Not necessarily!” said Bobby, quite vexed now. “Don’t you have the least idea where I could call him?”

  “No,” said Diana, “I don’t.”

  “Well, will you let me know as soon as you find out whether you can go?” persisted Bobby.

  “I could do that,” said Diana, with a troubled look. Oh, why did she have to be bothered with Bobby now?

  But at last he took himself away, having extracted a promise that she would let him know as soon as her father came home if there was any chance that she could go with him, and she drew a sigh of relief, reflecting that she could send him a note as soon as she was sure, and she meant to be sure one way or another that she could not go. She was definitely certain that marrying Bobby Watkins would be no way out for her. If she could not endure him for one short evening, how would she ever get through a lifetime in his company?

  As soon as Bobby was gone, Diana flew to the box of flowers and opened them. She did not look at the flowers themselves but pulled out the little envelope and looked at the card it contained, hoping against hope that it would bear some message from her beloved father. But no, it bore the card of Arthur McWade, another of the young men who from time to time came to call upon her and occasionally asked her to some party or entertainment with them. He was a nice, kind man, but very formal in spite of his brilliant intellect. Diana always felt rather overpowered in his company.

  She pulled the wax paper aside and glanced at the wealth of red roses he had sent. They were beautiful, yes, and with a deep, musky perfume. She ought to enjoy them, but somehow she had no heart tonight. She did not even bend her head to get a whiff of their perfume. They didn’t interest her tonight. She drew a deep sigh and went off upstairs to her room, leaving the abandoned roses to Maggie’s tender mercies. If only her father had sent them! But somehow she felt Cousin Helen’s hand in all this. With keen intuition she knew that he had probably reluctantly admitted to her that his daughter was not pleased, and she had likely advised him to let her alone, promising that she, like the proverbial sheep of little Bo-Peep would soon come home wagging her tail behind her. She could almost see the naughty gleam in Cousin Helen’s eye as she said it to Father. Strange, Father never seemed to understand what that sinister gleam meant. He trusted her so. That was the hopelessness of it. Helen would tell him a cheery version of anything that happened and he would trust her beyond his own daughter! How was life ever going to be endurable again?

  She went into her dark room and found her way to the window that looked out across the lawn and down to the hedged highway. Off to the right she could see the twinkling lights in the stone cottage through the trees. There was a light upstairs in the gable room, and she could see someone moving around. It was pleasant to have lights in the cottage again, it had been closed so long, since they could not afford to have a servant occupying it anymore. These people were a mother and son, Maggie said. She had sent Maggie down with coffee and sandwiches the day they moved in, and Maggie had come home delighted. The people were Scotch like herself. They were from Edinburgh and knew the street where she used to live. Maggie said they were quality folks and said she wished Diana would call on the “poor wee buddy” as she called the mother. “The son, he’s got some kind of a job in the city and he goes back and forth every day,” Maggie had said, “and she’s that lonesome, the poor wee mother! She’s live a’ her life in Scotland, an’ it’s a’ quite strange here for her!” And Diana had promised and meant to go that very day had not this terrible catastrophe befallen her. But now—well, the “poor wee buddy” would have to get along as best she could in the company of her son. At least she had her son. She wasn’t all alone as she, Diana, was. The thought brought a sudden gush of tears. Would she ever be able to think a continuous thought again without crying?

  But then like a flash she remembered that probably that son would get married like all the rest of the benighted earth, and then where would the poor mother be? She felt a quiver of pity for the unknown mother. Oh life, life, how cruel everything was! But she had no time now to think of calling on strange, lonely people. Her heart was too heavy for comforting strangers now. Down there across the dark lawn among the trees where twinkled pleasant lights of friendly folk, how many of them all had some deep, new sorrow such as she had to bear? How many of them knew that feeling of being stricken by some happening that seemed worse than death? Oh yes, there were things in life far more bitter than death.

  Diana drew nearer to the windowpane, and the little crystal vase with its three carnations swayed and would have fallen if Diana had not caught them. Some of the water splashed out, and the flowers slid out and brushed her hand as they fell. She gathered them up and laid them against her burning eyelids and then against her lips and let them once more typify comfort and understanding, as if behind them were a rare human love.

  The flowers downstairs, the roses and gardenias, were richly beautiful, probably far costlier than these three single blossoms, but somehow they didn’t comfort her like these mysterious flowers that had come to her so impersonally that they almost seemed like the breath of heaven, as if they might have been dropped from an angel’s hands as he passed on his way to some sad heart.

  If these had come from either Arthur McWade or Bobby, she knew she wouldn’t want to put her lips against them. But it wasn’t conceivable that either of them would have dropped them on her casual path as she had found these. She liked to think that it was without intention, just a happening, and yet the one who had dropped them had become in an indefinable sense a friend, and the only friend in whom she would care to confide her troubles.

  So she laid her lips against the delicate fringes of the petals and breathed her sorrow into them.

  Downstairs, Maggie had come upon the abandoned flowers and stood for a minute looking down at their rich beauty.

  “Ah! Poor wee thing!” she murmured, brushing away the quick tears with the corner of her apron. Then she trotted away into the living room and glanced at the gardenias in their silver bowl in state on a polished table, abandoned also. Neither suitor could divert her from her trouble.

  “Ah, poor wee thing! Poor wee thing!” she murmured again softly as she trotted back and put the large sheaf of crimson roses in water. Strange and sad and significant that both these floral tokens had come in one evening! Then, her work done, Maggie stood with her hands on her hips surveying the flowers, and her mind reverted to a tiny crystal vase she had seen upstairs in Diana’s room.

  “Those flowers?’” she said meditatively, interrogatively. “Where did those flowers come from?” And her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

  “Ah! The poor wee thing!” she said with another sigh. “What would her bonnie mother say if she knew it?”

  Chapter 4

  Down at the little stone cottage by the big iron gates, the “poor wee buddy” who was the new tenant was welcoming her son back after the day’s absence.

  “You’re late, Gordon. I’ve been worried about you. I was afraid something had happened. I’m always worried when you go off on those long motor trips with someone else driving. I was sure you had had an accident. You’ve always been so good about telephoning when you’re late.”

  “I know, Mother. I’m sor
ry. We had a flat tire away out in the country where we couldn’t get word to a garage, and we had to fix it ourselves with inadequate tools. It’s strange to me what risks some men take, when a few little tools would put one on the safe side. There wasn’t a telephone near us, and when we got to a town if we had stopped to telephone I should have missed my bus out from the city. And I knew you’d rather I’d hurry on and catch it than have to wait up till all hours looking for me, as you always will even if I telephone.”

  “Yes,” said the mother half sheepishly. “I like to, you know, dear son.”

  “Yes, I know you do,” said the son, stooping and giving her an affectionate kiss, “and I ought not to find fault with you. I’d be mighty lonely if you weren’t here to watch for me. I’m pretty fortunate to have a mother that likes to watch for me, I know. But say, you didn’t have the forethought to save a bite of dinner for me, did you? I’m starved. We had lunch at twelve o’clock, and not a minute nor a place to stop to eat again. I just barely caught the bus as it was.”

  “Of course I saved the dinner, Son. You didn’t think I’d forget how you love home-cooked dinners, did you? Go wash up, and I’ll have it on the table by the time you get down again.”

  She hurried away eagerly, a soft roseleaf flush on her cheeks like a girl, her eyes alight, a glad look of relief on her face. She really had been worried. She had been so worried that she had been praying about it.

  So presently her tall son returned just as she was setting a steaming silver platter down in front of his plate.

  “Mother!” he exclaimed. “Chicken! Are we celebrating something tonight? And I don’t believe you’ve eaten a bite of it! Mother! And it’s all of nine o’clock! Two legs, two wings, a whole breast”—he leaned forward with the carving knife in his hand and pretended to count the members of the bird. “Why, Mother, even the neck and the back and the gizzard are here. Now, Mother, that won’t do! You’ll get sick going without your food so long. You’ve got to stop doing this way.”

  She smiled. “Oh, I had a cup of tea and a biscuit just to stay my stomach till you came. Besides, when you’re anxious it’s not so good to eat, you know.”

  “There you are, little Mother MacCarroll, what’n all am I going to have to do with you? And I can’t help being late sometimes no matter how hard I try. Sometimes it’s impossible even to telephone.”

  “Oh, I’ll be all right,” said the mother with a happy smile. “You always get home eventually, and then we have such happy times! It’s worth waiting for!”

  “But not worrying for, Mother dear! I thought you had faith in your heavenly Father! Why can’t you trust me in His care?”

  “Well, I do!” laughed the mother. “I always trust you there. I was just bearing you up in prayer.”

  A tender look came over the young man’s face.

  “And where would I be, Mother, if you didn’t do that?” he said with a smile like a benediction.

  He bowed his head then reverently prayed, “Lord, we thank Thee for each other, and for Thyself, and for this food which Thou has furnished us tonight.”

  There was chicken with dumplings, light as feathers. How she managed it none could say, unless she had an uncanny intuition just when to put them in or some trick about not uncovering the pot until they were ready to be taken out and eaten; but there they were, not a soggy one among them. And mashed potatoes, too; not sulking as mashed potatoes know how to do when they have to wait too long to be eaten. There was plenty of gravy and little white onions creamed and a quivering mound of currant jelly left over from last winter, with sugar cookies and coffee to top off. It was a supper fit for a king.

  And when they had both been served and were seated enjoying everything, Gordon said, “Well, Mother, what’s been going on at our estate today?”

  It was a joke between them when they took this tiny, beautiful little cottage on the edge of the wide lawn that the whole was their estate, and they spoke of the people at the “mansion” house as “their family.” They hadn’t met any of them, of course. The cottage was rented through an agent, and the new tenants had moved in without the family in the big house even knowing they were there until they chanced to notice a light in the windows one evening and remarked about it. So for some little time they did not know who were the inmates of the house, and most assuredly did not know them except by the general term of tenants. All of which, however, did not hinder the tenants from being deeply interested to know who lived in the big, beautiful house and to watch everyone who came and went with eager interest and a kind of possessiveness, as one would watch the scenery around a new home to become familiar with it and grow to love it. So the MacCarrolls watched and talked over their landlord’s house and felt as if they somehow had a landed right in them, and so Gordon asked his mother, “What’s been going on at our estate today?”

  “Well,” said the mother, smiling, “not much. The little lady took her customary walk early in the day, but she came back earlier than usual, and I couldn’t help thinking she had a worried look. But maybe that was just my imagination. She didn’t come out again all day, though I kept a watchful eye out. I hope it wasn’t because she was sick that she didn’t come. I thought maybe I’d see the Scotch woman who came down the night we moved in, but never a sight of her did I get. If the little lady isn’t out tomorrow, I’ll maybe make an excuse to run up with some jelly and inquire after her.”

  “Well, that would be friendly,” the son said, smiling. “Oh, you’ll get to know her yet, I’m sure. No one can resist you when you once take a liking to anybody. And what did she look like this morning when she went by? Did she look pale that you should think she was ill?”

  “Well, no,” the mother said with a smile, carrying out the little farce they played together to keep from being lonely in this strange land to which they had come, away from their many friends. “No, I wouldn’t say pale. Perhaps just a little absorbed, as if she had something on her mind. But she was pretty and bright as ever. And she was wearing a little green dress I’ve never seen her wear before, a sort of knit garment that made her look like a part of the woods as she came out of them, a nymph, perhaps. It was very pretty, a mossy green, with a little green cap to match, and she carried a flower in her hand.”

  “A flower?” said the young man. “What sort of a flower?” He seemed unusually interested in his plate as he carefully cut a delicate bit of the breast of the chicken.

  “It was a pink flower,” said the mother. “I couldn’t quite be sure, but it looked like a carnation. A pink carnation. She held it up to her lips as she walked along, smelling it probably, and the soft pinkness of it was like the delicate rose in her cheeks. No, I don’t think she looked sick at all, only—it might be a good excuse to go up to the house and ask. But perhaps it’s too soon yet to try and make acquaintance. Perhaps it’s better to wait and see if she’ll come here. Though maybe she wouldn’t think of it. Maybe she’d think people in a cottage at the gate wouldn’t be the kind she would want to know.”

  “Well, and how do we know that she’s the kind we want to know?” the son said, smiling a bit haughtily. “If she would scorn people in a porter’s lodge just because they lived in a cottage, we would rather not know her, wouldn’t we? Perhaps you’d better bide a wee, Mother, and give her a chance to take the initiative. Personally I’d rather not know her and think she was lovely than to get well acquainted and find out she was not. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Well,” said the mother speculatively, “I’m not sure. Isn’t that just two kinds of the same pride, after all?”

  “Perhaps,” said the son, with a grin. “Do you want me to understand that you are calling me proud, too, little Mother?”

  “If the shoe fits, put it on,” responded the mother quickly.

  “Well, on the other hand, Mother, we’re playing a great game, and I’d hate to do anything to spoil it, wouldn’t you? At least until we get acquainted somewhere and have some real friends, we’d better not find out too much abo
ut the make-believe ones, had we?”

  “Probably not,” said the mother, passing the second cup of coffee, “but all the same I hope she comes out to walk tomorrow. I’ll not feel quite easy in my mind about her if she doesn’t.”

  The son looked up with an engaging grin.

  “Mother, if this game of ours is only giving you someone else to worry about,” he said with an undertone of real earnestness in his voice, “we’d better stop right here and now and think up some other form of amusement.”

  The mother laughed. “You silly boy. It’s you who are always worrying about me. Eat your dinner and listen to the rest of my story. She had a young man caller tonight. He wasn’t much to look at, too short and dumpy with a round, red face. He came before it was really dark, and he brought a big box. It looked like a florist’s box. And he had a fine, big shiny car. I think perhaps he’s up there yet. I haven’t heard him drive out again. And then about a half hour after he came, a florist’s car drove in and out again. I think he left flowers, too. He stayed about long enough. She must be pretty popular. Two boxes of flowers in one evening, don’t you think?”

  “It would seem that way,” said the son gravely. “But Mother, Mother, I’m afraid you’re getting to be a seasoned spy. You’ll be telling me gossip next if I don’t look out.”

  “Listen!” said Mrs. MacCarroll. “That must be his car now. He’s staying a long time. I was at the window watching for you when he came. And it’s almost eleven now. He must be some very special friend.”

  “Yes, probably,” said Gordon MacCarroll grimly. “She’ll be getting married on us next, and then what’ll we do for our romance? Come, Mother, it’s high time I got you to bed. No, you sit still and I’ll put these things away. You’ve done enough for today and it’s my turn. If things keep on as well as they have today, the hope is I’ll be able to get you a servant to look after the heavy work.”