The Flower Brides

by Grace Livingston Hill

  But those girls had no such common bond to bind them to her. They looked at her with hostile eyes. She was an intruder from another world. She had once been rich, they could see that from the very way she wore her clothes, from her walk, and from the delicacy of her lovely hands that showed no sign of having worked. They called all such girls snobs and hated them. They resolved to make it too hard for her so that she would have to leave and make room for one of their own kind. They began at once, drawing away from her and whispering with furtive eyes upon her, aloof and cold.

  It had not occurred to her that she would have to have much to do with the other waitresses, but she found at the start that she was somewhat dependent upon them. She approached one girl, the least disagreeable-looking one of the lot, and asked where she should put her hat. And the girl shrugged her shoulders with a wink at the others and said, “Ask the boss! I ain’t got time to show ya.” Diana stepped back bewildered, feeling as if she had been slapped in the face.

  Later she discovered that her very voice was an offense to these girls who had very little education. Most of them had left school to go to work even before the law allowed.

  She approached the boss for information and found a beetling brow and an ugly jaw. He scarcely glanced at her.

  “Ask one o’ the girls,” he growled. “I ain’t got time! Here you, Lily, you show this new number the cloak room. Mame, what’cha standin’ round for? Don’tcha see that customer over ta the corner? Get a hustle on ya. There’s plenty other girls if ya don’t find it convenient ta work today!”

  The girl gave a frightened glance and started toward the table over in the corner where the waiting customer sat, and Diana learned a startling lesson. She stood a second waiting uncertainly for the Lily girl to show her the cloak room, but Lily had hunched her shoulders and vanished into the kitchen.

  Diana shrank from asking any of the others who so obviously considered her an intruder. Then she saw another girl hurrying in out of breath, taking her hat off as she came. She resolved to follow her and ask no questions.

  “Hey you, Ruby! This is a pretty time a day ta be comin’ ta work!” roared the manager.

  “Oh, is it late?” panted the girl, turning and almost colliding with Diana. “I—you see—my grandmother was sick!”

  “Yeah? Yer grandmother again! Ain’t it so? Ya can’t put that over on me! Don’t let it happen again!” he snapped. “Get a hustle on! Make it snappy!”

  Diana shrank into the shadows of the back of the room and disappeared after Ruby. Perhaps Ruby would be kinder than the rest. She might ask her what to do.

  But Ruby had slung her hat on a hook and dashed out again tying on her apron, and Diana perceived that she had better do the same. As she went out she reflected that she couldn’t have that terrible man roaring her name out everywhere. What should she do? Take another name? Her middle name was Dart. She had registered as Miss Dart. But apparently that man would never call her Miss Dart. Well, let him call her Jane.

  Her decision was none too soon, for he met her at the door of the cloak room with a card and pencil.

  “Write yer name an’ address,” he commanded, “an’ be quick about it! Then take a tray an’ get ta work! There’s a customer comin’ in now. The menu’s on the wall, but some of ’em can’t read. Ya’ll have ta memorize it as ya go. Getta hustle on! And don’t bother me with questions. Use yer head!” He glanced at the card and added, “Jane!”

  Diana gave him one quick, startled look, caught up a tray from the frame beside her, and went over to the table in the corner.

  The man sitting there was rough and uncouth. He had a deep, stubby growth of hair on his face, and his eyes were bleared and fierce-looking. She glanced away toward the menu on the wall as she approached him and then turned beside the table to see his hateful eyes fixed upon her. She controlled a little shiver of horror and forced herself to look at him steadily and impersonally, and suddenly that same question came to her again. Did God love this man, too? Did He die for him? What a strange world she had come into! She had never questioned that before about anyone. The people she had known had been on the same social level with herself, and her contacts had been carefully guarded. She had never thought about people like this, and here she was serving them! But why should she resent them? The Son of God died for them!

  But his first words and his offensive glance made her shudder again.

  “You a new un, ain’t ye?’” he said, and his voice was offensive also.

  She gave him a frightened glance.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said with the least little bit of haughtiness in her voice.

  “Whatcha beggin’ my pardon for?” His eyes narrowed and seemed to be boring into her soul like gimlets. She gave a swift glance toward the manager and saw him watching her with an amused grin on his ugly, thick face, and instantly she rallied. Here was her testing. She must not fail.

  “Will you have ham and eggs, sausages, or liver?” she asked in a voice that sounded even to herself as if it came from very far away.

  “H’m! Snooty, are ye?” said the man contemptuously. “Well, make it hot cakes an’ sausage with plenty o’ syrup and a pot o’ coffee, an’ scram, for I’m in a hurry!”

  Diana didn’t know what scram meant, but she fairly flew, lifting her tray above the mulling crowd of customers that was beginning to pour into the miserable little eating place now in numbers too many for the accommodations, lifting her highborn chin a bit haughtily. She was here to serve, and if she lost her job, she would have to get another, perhaps worse than this. If God had died for all these dreadful people and loved her, too, He could surely protect her. And, of course, mere words or looks could not really hurt her. She had read something in her Bible the other day about being kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. She hadn’t known what it meant at the time, but now a dim vision of what it might mean came to her. She couldn’t see any keeping hand nor any guiding hand. It all had to be done by faith, faith that God loved her, had sent His beloved Son to die for her, and had thought her soul worth saving. It was therefore inconceivable, since all that was true, that He would let her be lost in any way, since He was all-powerful, all-seeing, and cared!

  While she was waiting for the hot cakes and preparing the tray as she saw the other girls do, she was thinking these things, and a memory of the man last night standing in the bright doorway of the little stone cottage by the home gate came to her. It lifted her out of her fright and gave her a kind of peace to think that a man like that had been praying for her. She liked to think that perhaps he was doing it now.

  Inside the breast of her plain black dress she had pinned a single carnation, as a kind of talisman. Its breath stole up faintly like the far fragrance of another world and comforted her.

  The manager was watching her. When she brought her tray back so swiftly, he seemed surprised. She was not clumsy as some of those other girls had been at the start. Her fingers were deft and worked quickly. As soon as she had learned where the knives and forks and spoons were kept and where to fill the glasses with water, her tray was arranged by the time the food was ready, and she carried it without slopping the coffee, too, not that the manager cared so much about that, however.

  Before the day was over, the manager had learned that even though she was “classy” she seemed to have a better mind for her work than some of the others. Moreover, she didn’t dally, and there wasn’t a lazy hair on her attractive brown head. The manager decided he liked her, and he saw to it that she had a chair at a table when she ate her swift meals. The other girls noticed this and hated her for it. The manager knew that she was worth more than some of the others when she got in training, and he called her for some of his best customers, “Jane! Take that number, Jane!” and the other girls would pause and cast malevolent glances. He was giving her some of the people who gave the biggest tips, and they hated her more. They talked about it as they passed one another or when they lingered at the counter waiting for
their orders.

  “Next he’ll be takin’ her out to a movie,” they whispered, “an’ what’ll Gwendolyn think o’ that?”

  But Diana went on her swift way not noticing either them or him, intent only on doing her work and not getting fired, though she was weary and footsore, with aching arms unused to lifting heavy trays and a tired back that rebelled at the unusual strain put upon it. At lunch she ate a small portion of the unattractive greasy food that was given to her, but when dinnertime came she was too tired to swallow but a few mouthfuls. The long, hurried hours were telling on her. Would the day never be done? And there would be other days, succeeding one another, day after day, working like this for her existence. And there was no end ahead. It would go on and on and on, unless God did something about it, for she had no home anymore, only that room that she must keep or be put out on the street!

  She was on her way out at last when the manager stood up from his table where he was counting a heap of small change and tapped her on the shoulder.

  “You done purty good, Jane, for a first try.”

  She thanked him wearily and, with his words of commendation in her ears, went on her way.

  The breath of her flowers smote across her consciousness as she entered her room. Poor flowers, condemned to brighten this dim room alone. Yet the very consciousness that they were here in this quiet place that was all hers made it possible for her to keep on through the day. She stopped to caress them, and the healing balm of them as always soothed her. But she was too weary even to think about them tonight. She flung off her garments and got into bed, drowsing even in the act. She had never before known what it was to be so tired, and the blessedness of sleep came down upon her like a curtain. She roused only to wind her alarm clock, mindful even in the weariness of the ugly warnings those other girls had received at being even a second tardy.

  Morning came with the sharp, insistent shriek of the little imp of a clock by her side, and she roused to the bitterness of her new life, languid, sore in heart and muscle, then dragged herself up to go through another day like the first one. Was it humanly possible for her to keep this up? Her gains through tips the first day had been so pitifully little, less than a dollar all told, and the starvation wage would not come until the week was up. That was the whip her new employer held over the heads of his help. Of course, she had food, such as it was, but no appetite for it. It seemed to her sick senses as if it was something that her soul had wallowed in for centuries when she came to eat that food. Its strong, greasy, scorched aroma had filled her lungs and nostrils until they were sated. Why should anyone want to eat, anyway? Why should they have to?

  Even Sunday brought only half-day relief, for the arrangement was that the girls took turns getting a full Sunday off. Jane was told that hers would come in four weeks, as she was a newcomer and must wait her turn. In consternation she looked forward to four steady weeks of this toil, broken only by that half-day once in seven! And when the seventh day came and she reached her room, she had no wish but to lie down and sleep again. She did not even stop to caress her drooping flowers. What did it matter? Someone had cared to send them, but she was too far gone in weariness to give them the attention they demanded. Well, they were dying and she would soon be dead, too, perhaps.

  She had tried to read her Bible nights when she came home but found herself so utterly fatigued that she could not take in the meaning of the words. She was gradually comprehending the life a large part of the world was living, and she wondered if God cared. Did He truly care? Oh, she wanted to believe it, but somehow that first Sunday afternoon after she became a waitress in that awful restaurant she could not quite feel sure anymore. She was just sick with weariness. Perhaps, later, she would become accustomed to such hard work and wouldn’t mind it so much, she told herself as she put her head down upon the pillow that first Sunday afternoon without the ceremony of undressing and was immediately drenched with sleep.

  It was Mrs. Lundy who wakened her, just at early evening, knocking on her door. She had a large box in her arms, and she was quite insistent. “These here come last night, but you wasn’t in yet. I told Lottie to bring ’em up when she heard you come in, but she didn’t bother, and when I come up this mornin’ you was gone. I guess it’s more flowers. Say, he must be a regular guy, sendin’ ’em once a week.”

  Flowers? Diana looked up with her sleep-laden eyes. Her heart leaped up, and she came awake at once, a soft color stealing into her pale cheeks. The flowers! They had come again! Not just once, but at regular intervals, just as they had been at home, only now by boxes instead of by blossoms! Wonder of wonders! And she had doubted her God’s caring!

  Of course, the Bible said nothing at all about God’s sending carnations to show His loving care, but somehow in spite of common sense those spirit-flowers seemed connected in some way with God.

  “I said he must be a regular guy, sendin’ ’em once a week!” repeated the landlady, looking at her curiously.

  “Oh, yes,” said Diana, a light coming into her eyes. “Yes, it does seem that way, doesn’t it?” And she swept an upward glance at the curious old woman with a smile that suddenly wiped away all the weariness from her face. “Yes, it does!” she lilted. “He must be!”

  “Well, if he’s such a swell feller, why doesn’t he come across an’ give you enough to pay your rent on time?”

  “Oh,” said Diana quickly, apologetically, a flush coming to her cheeks. “I have it right here, Mrs. Lundy. I meant to give it to you last night but it was so late, and your room seemed to be dark—and I was so tired—!”

  Mrs. Lundy, with a mollified manner, swept her another curious glance.

  “Seem like if he can afford to send a lotta flowers like that he might do somepin’ to keep you from workin’ so hard!”

  Diana cast her a superior smile from a cool distance.

  “But, you see, I wouldn’t let anyone do that, Mrs. Lundy!” she said proudly.

  “Oh!” said the woman significantly, and then after a pause, “Well, some does that way, o’ course, but I say it don’t pay to be too pertikelar in these days! You gotta live, you know!”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Diana, counting out the change, and Mrs. Lundy went on her way.

  Then Diana locked her door and turned back to her box, thoroughly awake now, her cheeks flaming crimson, her breath coming quickly as if she had been running, and her eyes starry bright.

  They had come again! Her mysterious flowers. She did not care where they came from, they had come. God had let them come. Perhaps she would never find out who sent them, but she knew they came from God.

  She opened the box and suddenly saw a white envelope bearing her name, lying right on the top of the wax paper that veiled the flowers, and her breath almost stopped. She sat back staring at it for a full minute before she put out her hand to touch it.

  Was that the same handwriting that had been on the outside of the first box? No, it wasn’t! She reached down in the corner and picked up the first box where she had hidden it behind the bureau. No, it was a different hand! It was a fine, clear, strong hand. A man’s hand? Or—could it be a woman’s? No, not possibly, and yet some women—nowadays—wrote in quite a masculine way. But the woman, if it was a woman, who would conceive the idea of putting flowers in the way of a troubled girl would never be one who would write a masculine hand. It wasn’t thinkable.

  These thoughts raced through her brain while she sat staring at the envelope, quite forgetful of the flowers whose perfume reached delicately out to enwrap her soul again.

  How silly she was to sit here staring when she had only to open that envelope and the secret would be revealed, likely, the mystery solved. Yet she dreaded knowing the truth, now that it seemed within her grasp. She could not bear to have her one little romance stripped of its mystery and brought out in the open commonplace of day.

  Then at once she could stand it no longer, and she opened the envelope with trembling hands and read what was within:

>   Dear Flower Girl,

  I found your precious note. I am glad the flowers helped.

  That was all! No name signed, no address or date or anything!

  And the mystery was still unsolved, yet very precious, but now there was a definite person connected with them, with a real intention of sending them.

  She arose with her flowers, knelt as before, and thanked God for sending them. Then she arranged them in a lovely jar and sat down before them to enjoy their beauty and fragrance and think over and over again the words of that message.

  “I found your precious note.” Precious—! It thrilled her just to think it over. Precious! Somebody cared! God cared, at least. And He must have let somebody else care, too, but not in any foolish way. In a wonderfully tender way, with more of heaven than earth in its quality.

  Flowers! Precious flowers!

  Chapter 18

  At the Disston mansion the servants had reigned for a week only, ordering what they liked and keeping high carnival. Helen had not bothered to look up their references. She said they were smart-looking and knew their way around. She wanted them because they had served in fashionable circles, or professed to have done so. But when she chose to insist upon weekends at the shore or mountains and spoke of whole weeks away, with the house running and ready for immediate occupancy, they looked forward to time on their hands and carte blanche to do as they liked. If the master of the house protested at such waste, Helen silenced him at once with the suggestion that Diana might choose to come home at any time, and he wouldn’t want her to find a closed house, would he? And the master said no more.

  He was more and more worried about Diana, waiting daily, expectantly, for word from her, which did not arrive, depressed beyond rallying after the mail would come and still no word.