The Flower Brides

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “I don’t believe you need to,” said Marigold thoughtfully. “He’s married a terrible little creature. Married while he was drunk! I expect life will give him all the whaling he needs now. That was what that telephone message was about just as we left the apartment. Didn’t I tell you? That’s why I was so long coming down. Miss Trescott phoned me. She thought I ought to know before it came out in the papers.”

  “Who is Miss Trescott, and what did she know about it?”

  “Oh,” said Marigold, laughing, “that is another story. I haven’t told you about my two callers yet, and why I was so long opening the door for you. I was afraid you would be another member of the family come to plead with me.”

  Then she told him the whole story, and he listened, a big grin growing slowly on his nice, understanding face.

  “So that’s what I walked in on, is it?” he said when she had finished. And then he threw his head back and laughed so heartily that some of the bored passengers at the other end of the car looked over the tops of their evening papers and wondered what those two good-looking young people had found to laugh at that was so funny; looked enviously at them when they saw the joy in their faces and thought of their own youth and bright spots that had relieved the tedium of the way.

  “Well, now that’s out of the way,” said Ethan, when they had laughed together over the two callers. “I still think I’ll whale him sometime, though I might try to help him get saved, too. He certainly needs saving, and I guess you’ve got a commission toward that aunt of his, too, sometime. I’m glad you got in a word about the Way before she left. You might not get another chance, you know, and she was ready for it then. You may never know the result in this life, but perhaps she’ll meet you over There! And now, I guess we’re getting into the city. Shall I help you on with your coat?”

  And there was the dome of the dear old Capitol looming on the night sky. But now it was no longer simply the seat of her country’s government, but it stood also for the memory of a great love that had come to her there!

  Marigold watched it for a minute with shining eyes. Then Ethan put her into her old fur coat and buttoned it up to her chin, giving her a loving smile and a little surreptitious pat on her shoulder, utterly aware of the eyes at the other end of the car watching the pretty romance in their two faces.

  “I think I hear a taxi,” said Aunt Marian suddenly. “Did you turn the porch light on?”

  “Yes. It’s on.”

  “Shall I go down and open the door?” asked Marigold’s mother eagerly.

  “No, Ethan has a key.”

  So they sat quite still, knitting and dropping stitches irresponsibly, as if nothing out of the ordinary was about to happen, and it seemed that the next three minutes were unconscionably long.

  Then came Ethan’s glad voice booming up the stairs: “I brought her, folks! I told you I would!”

  Something in his voice, perhaps, kept them very quiet, waiting for them to come.

  They came slowly up the stairs, his arm around her and their hands clasped, and into the room that way, standing in the doorway, looking from one to the other.

  “Well, Mothers, we’ve discovered that we love one another,” said Ethan with an exultant voice. “Do you mind?”

  The anticlimax came the next week when Maggie arrived one day for work lugging a big pasteboard box.

  “My girl, Viola May, is gonna be married next week,” she announced, with a radiant face, “an I done bring her weddin’ dress along ta show you-all.”

  “It’s somethin’ grand,” she said as she untied the box. “We couldn’t a bought it ourselves noways. One o’ their company up ta the Trosset house give it to me for takin’ home her laundry ta wash. She was a mighty hateful piece herself, awful high-an’-mighty, but I gotta give her credit for bein’ real generous once. She said this dress was worth a heap mor’n the work I done for her, but she didn’t want the dress no more. You see, she’d spilled some kinda wine all down the front. But I took yella soap an’ a piece of an ole’ turkey towel, and I just washed it out. Ain’t nothin’ like yella soap an’ water ta get stains outta things, an’ it don’t show no more, only a dear little bit, but I figure ta take a stitch or two on them red floaters on the sash an’ catch ’em down over the spot, so Viola May can get married in it. An’ then it ’curred ta me, Miss Marigold, you-all could do them stitches so much better’n I could! Would you mind? I’d stay an hour extra an’ clean that there bookcase in the livin’ room if you would. See! Ain’t it purty? Just like some heavenly robe! I never did see such a purty dress. Never thought my child would be married in a dress like that!”

  Marigold unfolded the dress and shook it out. Marigold’s grand white dress with the scarlet sash! Poor crumpled dress, its velvet streamers limp and dejected, its grandeur draggled and stained and dingy with one night’s frivolity!

  As Marigold bent over it to put in the few stitches Maggie asked, her heart was murmuring: Father, I thank You that You didn’t let me keep this dress!

  Mystery Flowers

  Chapter 1

  1930s

  Diana Disston stood at the window watching for the postman. Before her the wide, velvety lawn sloped to the tall hedge, which hid the highway from view. A smooth graveled driveway circled the lawn and swept down to the arched gateway where a little stone cottage, formerly the porter’s lodge, nestled among the trees. It was up that driveway the postman would come.

  Beside her in the wide window, just between the parting of the delicate lace curtains, stood a little table bearing a tall crystal bud vase with three pink carnations. Their fragrance filled the room. The girl turned and looked at them whimsically, an almost tender light coming into her eyes, her lips parted in a wistful smile, reminding one of a child dreaming over a fairy tale. Suddenly she stopped and took a deep breath of their fragrance, closing her eyes, and half shyly touching her lips to their fringed petals then laying her cheek softly against their delicate coolness.

  Then, laughing half ashamedly, she straightened up and took another look down the road. No postman yet! She glanced at the tall old clock in the hall beyond the arched doorway. It was fully five minutes beyond the time he usually came. Why should he be so late this particular morning when she wanted especially to know just how to plan for the day? There would surely be a letter. Or if there wasn’t a letter, she would know her father would be at home in an hour.

  If her father was coming, she wanted to dress and be ready to meet him. Perhaps he would suggest that she should go down to the office with him, and they would have lunch somewhere together. That was what he often did when he had had to be away for a day or two and leave her alone in the house with Maggie. Lately, though, he had always seemed so busy or so absent-minded when he got back from a business trip. She puckered her brows with the worry that had disturbed her more or less ever since he had been away. Somehow he didn’t seem just as he had been after her mother’s death. He had been so thoughtful of her, so almost tender in his treatment of her. He understood how desolate she was without her precious mother. And, of course, he was desolate, too! Dear Father! It must be terribly, terribly lonesome for him. Such a wonderful woman for his wife, and to lose her! But, of course, Father was reticent. He never said much about his own sorrow. He was just thoughtful for her.

  And yet, what was this haunting thing that troubled her? Surely it could not be business cares that worried him, for when they had sold off such a large portion of the estate, dismissed a retinue of servants, cut off a good many unnecessary expenses, and even rented the little cottage at the gateway, he had told her that all his debts were paid and they had enough to live on quite comfortably for the rest of their lives, provided, of course, they did not go into any great extravagances for a few years while his business was picking up. Investments were doing well, and there was no reason for him to worry. He had given her a larger allowance and told her to get herself some new clothes. No, it could not be money.

  And yet, was it really anything
? Was it not perhaps merely her own imagination? She had been so close to him during the first intensity of her sorrow that now that he was getting back into his usual habits of life she had grown too sensitive. That was it, of course, and she simply must put it out of her mind. When he came, if he came this morning, she would not let herself think of such a thing. She would rush out and meet him as she always had done, and she would show him how glad she was to have him back again, but she would not let him suspect that she had been worried about anything. She was silly, of course, to allow imaginings to return and make her uneasy.

  She turned her eyes once more to the flowers and touched them lightly with her hand. Sweet flowers! So mysterious and lovely! Coming in such a magical way. If she only knew who dropped them, one every morning in her path just where she went down the driveway to take her daily walk. And so fresh and perfect they were! Not old ones that had stood in a vase in a warm room. Not as if they had been thrown away after having been pinned to a coat. A single, perfect bloom lying in almost the same spot every morning! It couldn’t have happened. Not three times just alike!

  And if it had, if somebody had been carrying an armful of them and it could just happen three times that one slipped out and fell right in that spot, where would the person carrying them be coming from? Where would he—they—she be going? That driveway belonged to the Disston house, and nobody would have any business going down it every morning. Not since the butler was gone, and the other servants, and only Maggie in the house. Of course, there was the milkman and the grocery boy, but they always came in at the back entrance, never the front, and what would milkmen and grocery men be doing with pale pink carnations early in the morning? They certainly wouldn’t be throwing them away one at a time, nor dropping them carelessly. Diana reasoned that young men who delivered milk and groceries would not have so many hothouse flowers that they would be careless about them, anyway, certainly not three days in succession. What could be the explanation of the mystery? Probably it had some quite commonplace explanation, but Diana dreamily touched the petals of the flowers again and smiled. She preferred to think there was some delightful romantic magic about it. And since an explanation seemed quite out of normal expectation, why not indulge her dreams? At least it would be fun to see whether a fourth carnation lay on the drive tomorrow. If it did, there would be a real mystery, and she would have to begin investigations. But perhaps it would stop at three times, and then she could just cherish her dreams and not worry herself by the troublesome suggestion of her conscience that perhaps she ought not to have picked them up. They had lain there in the drive, fresh and sweet, demanding to be rescued from a chance passing wheel, and just in the one spot she could not possibly see from the windows of the house, because a big clump of rhododendrons spread out gorgeously and hid the road.

  Well, at least she could find out one thing. She could get up very early and see that no one went down the drive from the direction of the house. Or could she? Might not the flowers have been placed in the drive before dawn? Her eyes melted into the dreaminess of speculation.

  If Father came this morning, perhaps she would tell him about the flowers. Would she? Or should she take them up to her room and wait to see if another would come tomorrow morning?

  Then suddenly she saw the postman carrying a single letter in his hand that he had just taken out of his pack. She sprang to the door to meet him, her eager eyes on the letter. Oh, would he be coming this morning, or would she have to wait another day or two? She sighed at the thought of continued loneliness. And then as she took the letter, recognized the handwriting, and saw how unusually thick it was, her heart sank. He could not be coming or he would not have written so long a letter!

  She flung an absent-minded smile at the postman in answer to his good morning and went in with the letter in her hand.

  Diana was in a peculiarly lonely position just at present. Her mother had been dead only a little over a year, and for two years before that she had been more or less of an invalid. Diana had delighted to be with her constantly, as much as her school duties would allow. She had attended a nearby college for a couple of years until the invalid needed her more and more, and so, dropping out of her classes for what at the time had seemed to be only a temporary absence, she had dropped out of the lives of her young friends and become more or less of a recluse. After her mother’s death she found herself left out of the youthful merriment of which she had been a part in her high school and early college days, and without a strong desire to enter it again.

  It was not that she was too shy or gloomy, it was just that the precious last days of her companionship with her beloved mother had somehow set her apart from the little world where she had moved so happily when she was a child and a growing girl, and had made her more thoughtful, more particular, perhaps, about her friendships than she might have been without the refining experience of sorrow.

  Oh, there were a few of her old companions who came dutifully out to call. Some of them had even tried to drag her back into young society again. Others had written her lovely notes and sent flowers, but somehow her place among them seemed gone. They were interested in new things—some of them were married, most of the rest engaged—chattering about social affairs in which she had no part and almost no interest, and she hadn’t felt eager to follow them back.

  Later their mothers had called, and there had been quite a good many invitations recently. Diana had accepted some of them and found a strange distaste for the life she had once so enjoyed. The conversation seemed to her vapid, the activities sometimes almost stupid, and the excesses in which some of her former companions now indulged did not tempt her. She found herself revolted at the way some of them talked; the way they drank at their parties, just as a matter of course; and the way so many of them spoke of sacred things, lightly, flippantly. Was she growing morbid, she wondered, or was this just growing up? Certainly her old friends had changed. Perhaps they had grown up and she had just stayed a little girl. But she was twenty, and she had become rather close with death and sorrow. Still death and sorrow were not meant to sour one on life, to make one a recluse. So, from day to day she had tried to reason it out and had forced herself to go more and more among her acquaintances.

  There were several of her young men friends who had begun to come to the house of late, but none of them especially interested her. They were nice boys, she told herself, some of them were quite grown up and dependable. There were even a couple who did not drink—at least not much, just politely. But she had never thought seriously about any of them. She told herself that it would make little difference to her if they all stayed away, though she smiled whimsically as she said it and realized that she would probably feel forsaken if nobody ever came. It was a significant thing that in puzzling over the carnations she had never questioned if any of them could possibly have dropped those flowers in the drive for her. It was a thought that her mind rejected when it was first presented as a solution to the pleasant mystery. There were several who might have sent flowers formally, a whole box full, but not just a single blossom dropped on her pathway daily.

  So Diana came in with her letter, intending to sit down by the window and read it. Then suddenly she wanted to take it to her room. Perhaps some premonition warned her that she would want to be uninterrupted as she read, would not even want Maggie coming in for the orders of the day. As she turned back toward the hall, she paused and picked up the crystal vase, carrying it with her up to her room.

  She put the vase on a table in her own pretty room, a room whose windows looked out on the same sweep of lawn and drive and nestling cottage among the trees, where she had just been watching for the postman. She sat down beside the table to read her letter, but even as she tore the envelope open, again a premonition warned her. This was such a thick letter! Was he having to stay another week and leave her alone? Her heart sank. And then she began to read.

  My dear daughter:

  Somehow the words seemed more formal than his usu
al, “Dear Di,” or “Dear little girl.” How silly she was. It must be true that she was growing morbid! Then she read on.

  I have something to tell you which may surprise you, and perhaps will even shock you a little at first, but which I hope will prove in the end to be a great happiness to you, as it is to me.

  Diana lifted frightened eyes and looked quickly around at the familiar beauty of her own room—the sweet room that her mother had planned for her before she went away—as if to reassure herself that nothing could hurt her, nothing destroy the home and the steady things of life that the years had built up around her. She gave a little gasp and closed her eyes as if she were afraid to read on then drew a deep breath, taking in the spicy perfume of the flowers before she went on with her letter.

  I have had this in mind for some time, and several times have thought to tell you, but the way did not open and it seemed rather a delicate subject to talk about—

  Ah! Then there was something! There had been something that had worried him. It had not been her imagination after all! Oh, was it money, in spite of what he had said? Well, if it was money, she would just be thankful that it was nothing worse. Even if both of them had to go out and do hard manual labor and be very poor, she would not care. They would have each other. She drew another deep breath and tried to take courage as she read on.

  And so I have thought it better to write it to you before I come home that you may get used to the thought of it and be ready to be glad with me—

  Her trembling hands suddenly dropped the letter into her lap, and she relaxed in her chair. Oh, would he never come to the point? Must there be this long preamble before she knew the worst? Yes, the worst! She felt sure now it was going to be something terrible, or else why would he not have enjoyed telling her face-to-face? Her eyes went back to the letter.