The Flower Brides
Authors: Grace Livingston Hill
© 2015 by Grace Livingston Hill
Print ISBN 978-1-63058-848-9
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-63409-535-8
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-63409-536-5
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Published by Barbour Books, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683,
www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses
.
Printed in the United States of America.
Marigold
Chapter 1
Philadelphia, 1930s
M
arigold brought the big white box into her mother’s bedroom and put it on the bed. Her eyes were shining, and her lovely red-gold hair caught the sunlight and flamed gloriously, lighting up her happy brown eyes with topaz glints.
“Come, Mother, and look. I brought it home with me. I couldn’t wait to have it sent up; I wanted so much to have you see it at once.”
The mother came and stood beside the bed smiling, with just a bit of a troubled look in the deeps of her eyes. “It’s a lovely box, anyway, satin smooth, and looks as if it ought to hold a wedding dress at least,” she said wistfully.
“Yes, isn’t it!” said Marigold brightly. “And to think I have a dress in the house from that wonderful shop! I never thought that would happen to me! The best part of the box to me is that magic name on the top, ‘François.’ I’ve dreamed of having that happen!”
“Dear child!” said her mother, with a sad little smile. “But, do you think it is so much better than other places that aren’t so expensive? I’ve always thought we had some lovely things made for you here at home.”
“Of course you have, you dear! I never discounted them. It’s only that I wanted this one to be, well, different from anything ever. I wanted it to have a big name behind it. And then there’s always some little touch that can’t be achieved except by those great designers. You know that, Mother. Oh, Mother dear! Don’t look so grieved. The things you’ve always made for me have been wonderful, and some of them much, much prettier than any I ever saw from the great dressmakers of the earth. Some of those are positively ugly, I think, and yet they do have that something about them that nobody else can quite achieve and only the knowledgeable recognize.”
The mother smiled.
“I suppose so,” she said with a sigh. “But go on and open your box. I’m curious to see the garment that is worth a whole hundred and fifty dollars. I hope it lives up to my idea of what it ought to be.”
“I’m sure you’ll think it does,” said the girl with happy eagerness in her face. “It’s wonderful!”
She lifted the lid slowly, such a happy light in her face that her mother was busy looking at her instead of watching for the first glimpse of the Paris garment.
Marigold put the lid down on the floor and turned back the satiny folds of tissue paper. Even the tissue paper seemed to have a rare quality. Then she stood back and watched her mother’s face.
“There!” she said. “Isn’t that gorgeous?”
The dress lay folded carefully, showing its lovely quality even at the first glance—rich, glistening, thick white taffeta, memories of yesterday woven into its texture and silvery finish. At the slender waistline was knotted a supple velvet sash, soft as thistledown, in deep vivid crimson, with long silken fringe at the ends, and on one shoulder was a dark, deep velvet rose to match.
Marigold’s eyes were like a child’s with a new doll she was exhibiting.
Mrs. Brooke caught her breath in a soft exclamation of admiration.
“It is very lovely,” she said. “It looks—almost regal!” And she gave a quick glance at her daughter and then back to the dress, as if trying to harmonize them. “You’ve never worn that deep shade of crimson. I’m wondering—” She studied her daughter’s vivid face and then turned back to the dress.
“How will it go with my red hair?” asked the girl joyously. “Wait till you see it on me. I’m some sight!”
“Your hair is not really red, Marigold, only reddish-gold,” answered the mother. “It really goes with anything.”
“Well, you ought to have heard the saleslady rave over the combination,” laughed the girl. “She positively waxed eloquent.”
“She probably wanted to sell the dress!” said the mother wisely. “But put it on. You can’t always tell beforehand. Wait! Let me spread a sheet down on the floor! You mustn’t run any risks with that lovely thing!”
When the sheet was spread Marigold slipped out of her little green knitted dress and into the rich, shimmering evening gown and turned excitedly to face her mother.
The mother stood studying her daughter critically.
“Yes, it’s good,” she assented. “I hadn’t realized that you could wear that color before, but it’s rather wonderful. It does something to you, makes you look as if the light of the sunset were shining on your face.”
“I thought you’d like it,” said the girl in satisfaction.
“Yes, it’s very beautiful, and very attractive,” said Mrs. Brooke. “Turn around and let me see the back.”
Half shamed, the girl laughed.
“I’m afraid you won’t like the back so well,” she apologized, twisting her head to look over her shoulder at her mother. “It’s a low back, of course, but I couldn’t get any other. Everybody, simply
every
body wears them. I couldn’t find one without. And really, Mother, this was the most conservative back they had!”
“Oh,
my dear
!” said her mother sorrowfully. “I couldn’t think of you wearing a back like that! Your father would have objected to it seriously. He hated such nakedness. There was a woman in our congregation who used sometimes to put on an evening dress for church socials, quite out of place, of course, and he disliked it so. But even that wasn’t low like this. I can hear him now comically saying: ‘Mrs. Butler had her dress trimmed with real vertebrae, didn’t she?’”
Marigold laughed half-heartedly.
“Oh, but Mother, that was a long while ago. He wouldn’t have felt that way now. Why, you even see low sun-backs in the daytime, and on the beach, and everywhere. And nobody has evening dresses made high in the back.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” sighed the mother, troubled. “But couldn’t we fit in a piece of real lace, or perhaps get some of the material and do something with that back?”
“Mother! How simply
dread
ful! You would take all the style away and ruin it! Everybody would be laughing at me behind my back. No, Mother dear, you’ll have to get used to such things. Nobody thinks anything about backs today. What’s a back, anyway? Just a back.”
“Well, but backs are ugly!” said the mother, with a troubled gaze. “I don’t see why they do it! And it makes me ashamed to think of my girl going around in front of a lot of people unclothed that way.”
The color rolled up impatiently into Marigold’s lovely cheeks. “Mother, how ridiculous! You don’t realize that everybody wears such things nowadays, and nobody thinks a thing about it! If Father had been alive today, he would have had to change some of his ideas. In those days it wasn’t done, but it is now. I’m sure Father wouldn’t think a thing of it if he were alive today.”
“I wonder—” said Mrs. Brook, with a troubled frown.
Marigold turned to face her mother again. “Mother, isn’t that thin line of crimson just exquisite, falling down against the thick white silk? I think that fringe is adorable the way it falls down the skirt. You do like the dress, don’t you, Mother?”
She lifted a charming face eager for approval, and her mother’s anxious face relaxed.
“Yes, it is indeed beautiful, and surprisingly flattering.”
But there was something in her mother’s tone that did not quite satisfy Marigold.
“Mother! You don’t quite like it! What is it that you don’t like besides the low back? I knew you wouldn’t like that, but any dress I could buy that would be suitable would have had that objection. But there’s something else; come, own up! I know your tone of approval, and this isn’t just hearty.”
“Oh, my dear!” said the mother, with a trembling little smile. “No, child, I find nothing else to criticize. It is very beautiful and very distinguished-looking. I’m only questioning whether a quiet little Christian girl—I suppose you still call yourself that, don’t you?—has the right to spend all her money on one dress that is so perishable and at most can only be worn half a dozen times. You couldn’t possibly get enough others of the same quality to make up a whole wardrobe.”
“Mother!” said the girl, her sweet face suddenly shadowed. “You are spoiling the whole thing! I shall never want to wear it now!”