How words could stab! She felt she never would forget the sharpness of the pain that came as she read the next words.
It is just this, Diana, I am going to be married again. I hope it is going to be as happy a change for you as it is for me. I have felt for a long time that our loneliness had been too great to endure. I am sure I have seen this in you also. Your mother would never have wanted us to go on alone—
Alone! Did they not have each other?
Diana steadied herself tensely to take in this awful, cataclysmic thought. Her father was going to put another woman in her mother’s place! How could he? Oh, how could he!
This couldn’t be true! She was dreaming!
Her eyes wildly sought the letter again to extract some word of hope somewhere from what yet remained to be read.
And so, Diana, I am doing what I feel is best both for you and for me. And now, you needn’t get excited and think I am trying to make you accept a stranger in place of your mother, because the best part of this is that the woman who has honored me by promising to be my wife is more nearly your companion than mine. She is only a very little older than you are, and will therefore, I hope, be most congenial to you. And we shall have a delightful home together. I am sure that you will be glad that she is not a stranger to you—
Diana wildly began to go over the list of their acquaintances, rejecting each one as impossible, while she swept the sudden tears away that blinded her eyes so that she could not read the rest. Then, desperately she read on.
In a sense she really belongs to us because there is a distant relationship, though very distant, of course, and that only by marriage. I am marrying your mother’s cousin, Helen Atherton, my dear, and I hope you will rejoice with me and make her most welcome in our home and life, and that we shall all be very happy together—
But suddenly the letter dropped from Diana’s nerveless fingers and she gave a terrible, wild little cry, the tears pouring down in a torrent!
“Cousin Helen! Oh, not Cousin Helen!” she gasped aloud in quivering sobs, shuddering as she wept. “Oh, he can’t, he can’t—he wouldn’t do that! My f–f–father—w–w–would–n’t—do thha–at!”
The great house was still and only echoed back her piteous cries hollowly. Suddenly she was aware how empty the home had become—and how dear it was! And now her father was going to destroy this home for her forever, destroy it so fully that she would not even want to think of it or its pleasant memories because it would be so desecrated!
She staggered to her bedside and dropped down upon her knees. Not that she was thinking to pray, only that she must weep out her horror over this new calamity that had befallen her.
Kneeling there and weeping in her first abandoned grief, she seemed hardly to be able to think. “Oh, God!” she cried again and again, until it seemed that God must be there somewhere listening, though she hadn’t been conscious of Him before. Yet it seemed somehow to comfort her to think that perhaps God might listen to her trouble.
There were no words in her frenzy, but scene after scene in her girlhood in which this cousin Helen had figured went whirling through her mind, as if she were presenting pictures of what happened for God to see and remember, to remind Him how unbearable a situation it would be with Cousin Helen in her mother’s place.
“Oh, Father doesn’t understand!” she sobbed out. “He never knew how hateful she was!”
Instance after instance of unfortunate contact unfolded before her frightened brain, beginning with little things in her childhood, too petty perhaps to notice now, since they were both grown up. She had been only a baby when Cousin Helen took her precious best doll and singed her hair all off with her curling iron. It had been a desecration of something precious to the little girl. But the fourteen-year-old cousin had laughed impishly and flung the doll aside, breaking its lovely face, and then had run away laughing.
Diana, even in the midst of her weeping, recognized that it would not be fair to judge the woman by an act of a partly grown girl. But there had been so many ugly things. Every time she had come to visit, each day had been full of trial and torture to the finely strung child.
There was the time she hid Diana’s essay that she was to have read in school that afternoon. She let the whole household search for it frantically, and Diana finally had to go and read from scraps of paper on which it had been written, only to find the neat manuscript lying on her desk on her return from school with a placard beside it scrawled in Helen’s most arrogant handwriting, “April Fool!” Diana had been fourteen then, and Cousin Helen old enough to know better. Cousin Helen had left for home that morning before Diana got back from school. Diana’s father had taken her into the city to the train. He had missed the whole excitement about the essay. Perhaps no one had ever told him the outcome. So he didn’t understand. Diana’s wild thoughts glided over dozens of other unhappy times when Cousin Helen had cheerfully, almost demoniacally, committed some selfish depredation upon something Diana counted precious.
There was the affair of the green taffeta dress, Diana’s first real party dress. How her mother and she had delighted in it, selecting the smooth, shimmering silk with care, having it made in the style most becoming to her slender form; how happy she had been when she tried it on the last time before the party. Mother loved it so, and she felt as she looked at herself in Mother’s long mirror as if she were a child in a fairy tale. A great part of the anticipation of that party had been in the thought of the lovely dress she was to wear, her first really long dress.
And then Cousin Helen had arrived! On the very morning of the party day she had arrived. She had a way of arriving at inopportune times like that, and it always annoyed Mother. Though Mother never had said a word about it, Diana somehow knew that Mother did not enjoy Cousin Helen’s visits. She wondered now—was it—could it have been that Cousin Helen so often absorbed Father’s time and interest when she happened to have no other admirer near? Somehow Diana’s eyes were being opened quickly to several things that had happened in the past.
But not even Cousin Helen’s advent had quite dimmed the thought of that wonderful party. And so the day had slipped by in glad anticipation until it was time to dress.
Cousin Helen had gone upstairs immediately after dinner, telling them someone was coming to take her to the country club that evening for a party. She had been dressed for evening when she came down to dinner, but while Diana was in her mother’s room getting something done to her hair that only Mother could rightly do, Cousin Helen had suddenly appeared in the doorway with a rustle and called out nonchalantly, “Well, folks, how do you like me? Don’t I look delicious? I found this up in a closet and liked it so much better than my own that I put it on. Hope you don’t mind!”
And there stood Cousin Helen in Diana’s lovely green taffeta party dress, smiling impishly, her eyes showing that she had full knowledge of the confusion she was occasioning.
Diana remembered her own indignation, how she had cried out in horror: “Oh, that’s my party dress! I’m going to wear it to a party tonight! You can’t wear that, Cousin Helen!”
And Mother had turned quickly, the brush in her hand, and protested firmly: “I’m sorry, Helen, but you couldn’t wear that—”
And Cousin Helen had just given a laugh, whirled around, and flung back: “Sorry, kitten, it’s too late now. You’ll have to wear something else. My boyfriend is downstairs waiting for me! Ta-ta!” and was halfway down the stairs before they could get to the door.
Mother had followed her indignantly to the head of the stairs and called down sharply, “Helen! Come back here! You can’t do that! You really can’t!”
But Helen only laughed and called back, “Can’t I? See if I can’t!” and went out the front door, slamming it after her. They could hear the sound of a motor starting before they fully comprehended what had happened. That was Cousin Helen! And Father was going to marry her!
There had been other depredations as she grew older, acts utterly disloyal to h
er family when she was their guest, borrowings from others, unasked, of things far more important than dresses. Diana recalled dimly discussions between her father and mother concerning intense flirtations with other women’s husbands in which Cousin Helen had utterly alienated some of Mother’s best friends because of her calm way of taking possession of their husbands.
Diana suddenly remembered that, most unaccountably, Father had always taken Cousin Helen’s part in these discussions. He said she was only a kid and was “a cute little piece” and “a pretty child,” and insisted that she had no idea she was doing anything to hurt anybody. Insisted that she was entirely guileless and only having a good time.
Even in the matter of the green taffeta he hadn’t been able to see that there was anything more than an innocent prank.
“What’s one dress?” he said amusedly. “Let Diana wear something else. She has plenty of clothes, hasn’t she?” They couldn’t seem to make him understand that she hadn’t any real party dress that would be suitable for the occasion. That this had been her first really grown-up dress, and it had meant so much to her. He had smoothed her head caressingly when she had dissolved in tears and refused to go to the party at all and told her she was silly to stay at home just because she couldn’t wear a certain dress. Also he had insisted that nothing should be said to Cousin Helen.
Even when Cousin Helen came home with a tear in one of the taffeta ruffles and a large spot on the front of the skirt where she had spilled ice cream, and no apology by a laugh, Father dismissed the whole matter as a trifle. Oh, had Cousin Helen even then begun to get her hands on dear Father to pull the wool over his eyes? She had that faculty whenever she chose to use it. She had never bothered to do it with Mother and herself.
There had been many times later when Cousin Helen had demanded a great deal of Father’s attention. And it was all done so prettily. Father was always gallant to every woman, though he had ever been most devoted to Diana’s mother. But the girl remembered now those evenings when Helen had dragged Father off to an entertainment she was bent on seeing. Diana more than once on such an occasion found her mother in her darkened room in tears. Mother said she had a headache, or something of the sort. But now Diana began to have a feeling that Cousin Helen had a lot to do with those headaches. Helen would steal a man’s heart as easily as she would borrow a party dress!
And Father hadn’t realized it. No, Father wasn’t one of those men who enjoyed going off with other women, no matter how pretty and young they were. Father loved Mother deeply always. But now that Mother was gone—! Oh—! And now Helen made him think he ought to marry her! Oh, he mustn’t! He mustn’t! She must stop it somehow! She must save him from Cousin Helen! He didn’t know! He didn’t realize! She must do something about it at once. Even if she had to tell him all the little, silly, annoying things from her childhood up, she must make him understand what a calamity it would be if he married Cousin Helen!
She picked up the letter again and began to read once more. She must find out if he was coming home that morning.
So she read on.
We are to be married at once and will come right home for a few days before we go on a wedding trip. Helen feels that there are changes she will want made in the house and those could be made while we are absent—different furnishings and decorations. But I am writing to you now to make a few suggestions about our homecoming. You will want to have a nice dinner ready, of course, and the rooms in order. Perhaps Maggie will want some help about special cleaning. You will know how to look after that.
But there are a few little things that you can do for me before I get there. Please go through my room and take away anything you feel might be annoying to Helen. Your mother’s picture and any little things that were especially hers. Just put them away out of sight. You have nice tact, and I’m sure you will understand what to do. Helen has a very sensitive nature, you know, and might feel it if anything were left around to remind her of the past.
Helen seems to think you would rather not be present at the wedding, and being a woman, of course, she probably knows how you would feel about that, so I will not suggest that you come. In fact, by the time this letter reaches you it would be too late for you to start. But I am sure you will understand that I have refrained wholly for your sake from asking that you come. And, of course, when we get home, we’ll all have good times together—!
Diana caught her breath in a great sob. Good times! Would there ever be any good times again? A panic seized her! She must get in touch with her father right away! She must not waste another minute. She must somehow stop this terrible catastrophe that was about to happen to herself and her father!
She glanced at the letterhead to get the name of the hotel at which he was staying and hurried to the telephone. Oh, would he be there? Would she be able to talk to him if he were? What should she say? How should she begin?
Chapter 2
It was two full hours before Mr. Disston was finally located in the distant city hotel to which she telephoned, and Diana spent those two hours alternately walking the floor in desperation and flinging herself on her bed to weep her heart out, then springing up again to listen for the telephone.
During that two hours, every tantalizing deed of Cousin Helen Atherton’s came back in vivid form to torture her imagination. When she finally heard her father’s beloved voice over the telephone she was almost too worked up to speak.
“Oh, Father!” she cried with a great sob in her voice. “Don’t, don’t do this dreadful thing! Don’t marry that terrible woman!”
“Why, Diana!” said her father sternly. “You don’t realize what you are saying!”
“Yes, I do, I do! Oh, Father, I do! She is terrible! You don’t know! We never told you everything. We thought it would annoy you. But Mother almost hated her. I’m sure she did!”
“Stop!” said Diana’s father in a tone she never had heard him use to her since she was a little child and had been guilty of extreme naughtiness. “Diana, I cannot believe my senses! To think that you should speak such words! To think that you should charge your lovely, sweet mother with ever having hated anybody, much less one who has often been an honored guest in our home!”
“Oh, Father! You do not understand. Helen is deceitful! She does the meanest, most underhanded things and just laughs, and you have to stand whatever she does! She doesn’t care how she hurts you! She doesn’t care what she ruins or how she spoils other people’s plans! She often made Mother cry. And she used to take my things and wear my clothes without even asking if she might, and—”
“Oh, now, Diana,” said her father in a soothing voice, “you have gotten yourself all excited over the memory of some of those childish things that happened when Helen was a mere child herself. You can’t forget that foolish party dress! I know that was a little hard for you to bear, but you were a mere baby yourself, and, of course, you must realize that she is grown up now. I didn’t think you had it in your sweet nature to hold a grudge so long about such a trifling thing as a dress. Of course, I expected you to be a little surprised, perhaps even somewhat startled. But I never dreamed that you would allow your lips to utter such bitter words about another fellow creature, let alone the woman you know your father is going to marry—”
But Diana’s spirit was goaded again into a frenzy. “That’s it, Father! You mustn’t marry her! Oh Father, Fath-er, please don’t do it! Anyway, wait until you can come home and let me tell you all about her. It isn’t alone for my sake I’m asking this. It’s for yours. If you knew how hateful she can be you wouldn’t want to marry her! Why, Father dear, even before Mother was gone she tried to get you away from Mother!”
“Diana!” Her father’s voice was angry now. “Don’t attempt to say another word to me! You are beside yourself! I certainly did not foresee any such demonstration as this or I should have prepared you beforehand for what I have been contemplating for some time. I am sure when you get by yourself and have a chance to think over what you have said
you will be ashamed of yourself and be quite ready to apologize. In the meantime, it is not good to talk about these things over the telephone. We won’t say any more about it! Just please remember, when you come to your senses, what I have asked you to do, and if I do not find it done, and well done, as I know you can do it, I shall consider that you have given me a personal affront. You know, Diana, I am really making this move partly for your sake, that you may have a richer, fuller life, and it ill becomes you to carry on like this even for the first few minutes until you get used to the idea. Now, child, just go and calm yourself, do the things I have asked of you, and let us say no more about it. Certainly not over the telephone!”
“But, Father—!” Diana’s voice was full of desperation. “I must talk to you. I must tell you something—Father, dear! Won’t you come home even for a few minutes? Won’t you take the next train and come to me quick? I must see you!”
Her father’s voice was cold and displeased as he answered. It made her shiver to listen to him. “That is quite impossible, Diana! My plans are made, and I have no time to take the long journey home just now. Be sensible and forget your former little jealousies and prejudices. Believe me, we are going to have a very happy time now if you do your part.”
“No! No!” protested Diana, the tears raining down her cheeks. “No, Father! I could never stay here in this home if you brought Helen here. I couldn’t! And she would not want me! You’ll find out! Oh Daddy, Daddy! Don’t do this!”
“Diana, would you want your father to be lonely the rest of his life?” came the question after a brief pause. His tone was almost placating, gentle.
“Daddy, you wouldn’t be any more lonesome than I would. We would have each other.” The tone was very sweet and pleading.
“But, little Di, you don’t realize that pretty soon you’ll be getting married yourself, and then where would I be?”
The Flower Brides Page 25