The Flower Brides (80 page)

“Too bad you couldn’t have got home early tonight,” she said with a lilt in her voice. “He’s been gone only about ten minutes. He stayed as late as he dared. He had to catch a train! But he’s left a note for you.”

“A note?”

Camilla accepted it as if it had been gold and treasures. She dropped down just where she was without taking off her hat or coat and read it, a glow on her cheeks and a tumult in her heart. Her mother watched her furtively from the hall, lingering with a wistful smile upon her face, trying to read the heart of her girl through the flush on her cheek and the glint in her eyes.

Camilla sat still, studying that note, trying to subdue the surge of happiness that went over her, trying to act casual, trying to feel casual. Now, just what was there in that note to make her feel so glad, so light and relieved? It was a perfectly commonplace note, wasn’t it? Anybody might have written it to anyone else? And yet all the heaviness of the past three days was lifted. Why? Well, he hadn’t forgotten her, and she had fully persuaded herself that he had, and at least to him this wasn’t the end—not yet. That in itself was a song of thanksgiving. For since she had made up her mind that it was the end, there seemed to be many reasons why she wanted to see him again. For one thing, she wanted to be sure that he did not think less of her because she had allowed that sweet kiss. She wanted to look into his face and read what he had meant by it. Not that she was at all in doubt about the impossibility of any further growth of their friendship, but that she wanted to read fineness and cleanness of purpose in his face and always be able to think well of him when she remembered him.

Presently she looked up and caught a glimpse of her mother’s questioning face, and her own broke into a smile. “Did he come in, Mother?”

“Yes, and waited three-quarters of an hour. We had a nice talk together. He has great charm.”

“Yes,” said Camilla dreamily, going over to the roses and burying her face in their sweetness again, closing her eyes while she drew in a long, delicious breath. “Yes, he has charm. I suppose all people of the world have charm, haven’t they, Mother? I haven’t met so many of them, you know.”

“No!” said the mother sharply. “Not all of them. In fact, I have known many who had none. Their money and position seemed to have made them hard and sharp and disagreeable. Is the letter about your car?” Mrs. Chrystie hesitated, her eyes on the paper held close in her daughter’s hand. Was her precious girl in danger? If she could only see that folded note she might be able to read between the lines.

Camilla opened her note again and read it over, the color coming softly into her cheeks. Then with a lingering smile she suddenly held it out to her mother.

“It’s nothing, Mother,” she said with her most casual air. “Read it if you like! Just a friendly apology because he couldn’t come down yesterday or day before as he promised, to—tell me about the car.”

Her mother gave her a steady look then read the note slowly, while Camilla hurried about singing a soft little excited song, trying to seem disinterested.

But her mother came straight to the point. “What had you been talking about, Camilla, that he wants you to keep in mind?”

“Oh,” said Camilla, airily, her cheeks growing a trifle redder, “just, why—as nearly as I can remember, something about being to the manor born!”

Her mother looked at her thoughtfully for a moment.

“Oh!” she said, and she handed the note back.

They were very happy that night eating supper together, the first supper the mother had cooked, for Miss York had made up several dishes that would last for a day or two until the invalid was used to being quite on her own again.

“Everything tastes so good, Mother!” said Camilla, looking up with happy eyes.

Somehow it seemed as if she had had a reprieve. She didn’t have to keep her conscience constantly awatch over her thoughts. He was away at least for a few days, and she might get rested and think it over at her leisure. And just for this evening, at least, she meant to enjoy home and Mother.

Her mother brought the roses and set them in the middle of the table as they sat down, and there they were in their beauty to remind of the giver.

They had a cheery meal and a happy time putting the kitchen in order, and the mother wisely said no more about the young man. But after the lights were out she did much praying. It was a situation that she did not feel herself able to judge aright, so she prayed for guidance that her girl might not be tempted into anything that would bring her sorrow.

It was the next day that the little old reconstructed car came shining home in a new coat of paint and looking as if it were brand-new throughout. And when the wondering girl started its engine, it purred as silkily as if it were finer than it had been originally.

A few days later life settled down into the old routine. The roses had faded, and Camilla was becoming accustomed to the newness of her old car. The accident and all that had followed it had been softened into the semblance of a dream, and except that she could not look at her mother without continually giving thanks for her renewed strength, all things seemed as they were before her mother’s illness. Even Wainwright had become for the time being only a dream-hero who had appeared to relieve her necessity and then vanished into oblivion, and she was able to forget him hours together and sometimes to go to sleep without recalling his farewell. She congratulated herself that she had come back to sanity.

She did not see a taxi containing a handsome, dark, foreign-looking man following her little car home one night. She noticed him no more than anyone else in traffic. She did not notice the same man hovering in her street the next morning when she left for the office, nor notice another taxi following her to her parking place and the same man trailing her to the office door. She was wholly unconscious of it all and settled to her work as usual that winter morning, thankful that she had a warm woolen dress that was respectable without having to buy a new one before the doctor and nurse were paid. She looked down at herself proudly, smoothed the skirt, and noticed how well the blouse looked in spite of home cleaning and blocking, and then she settled down at her desk and to work, steadily refusing to let her mind even hint at the thought that time was going on and Wainwright might be coming home soon. It wasn’t a thought she had a right to think, and she wasn’t going to allow it. She was proud of herself for having conquered her foolish interest in a passing stranger.

I
t happened just after her employer had come through from his private office and gone down in the elevator for his lunch hour. Marietta Pratt, the other girl who occupied the desk opposite Camilla’s, had gone to lunch also. Camilla had chosen to let her go first today because of some letters she wanted to finish for the afternoon mail. She was trying to have them ready for Mr. Whitlock to sign when he came back from lunch.

She was working away like a whirlwind, her mind intent on what she was doing, her fingers flying over the typewriter keys with a skill and rapidity beautiful to watch. She had a feeling that she could work better when the other girl was gone, because she was a fidgeter and a fusser, always coming over and interrupting to ask a question.

Suddenly as Camilla worked she became aware of the presence of someone in the room and, looking up, startled, she saw a girl standing in the open door, her hand still upon its knob, looking at her with scorn and anger. A girl with gold hair, ghastly red lips in a chalk-white face, and eyes that seemed to be strange, evil, red-gold stones, yet stones that could pulsate and flame with a kind of hidden fire.

Camilla, even as a child, had always been strangely calm in a time of crisis, so now, even as she took in the identity of this other girl and realized that she had come to wreak some kind of vengeance upon herself, the startled look went out of her eyes and her face became a well-controlled mask filled only with a polite business inquiry. Her hands had half dropped, poised over the keyboard of her machine, and her expression showed no sign of recognition. The intruder was nothing more to her apparently than any other stranger who might have chanced to come to the office on business.

She looked up and waited an instant, as if expecting the visitor to speak, but the other girl only stared at her speculatively, appraisingly, still scornfully, with white fury in her gaze.

Camilla lifted her lovely chin a trifle, with a pride she had received by inheritance, and let her eyes coolly appraise the visitor. Then she spoke in a tone as of one in authority.

“Did you wish to see Mr. Whitlock?” she asked, and her voice carried all the generations of cultured, educated people who had been her forebears. “He has gone out to lunch. He will not be back until half past two.”

The beauty stared indignantly.

“No, I didn’t come to see Mr. Whitlock nor anybody else but you!” she said haughtily. “And you needn’t think you can hide behind anyone. I came here to talk to you, and I mean to do it.”

“Why, certainly,” said Camilla courteously, whirling around from her typewriter and facing the stranger. “Won’t you sit down? I’m sure I don’t know why I should wish to hide from you.”

“Well, you probably will before I get done with you,” said Stephanie Varrell vehemently, “and you needn’t put on that sanctimonious look. I’ve had a hard enough time finding you, and you needn’t think I’ll let you off easily, either. I’ve had to employ three men and a taxi two days to locate you, but I did it! I’ve come to tell you where to get off, and you probably know what that means. If you don’t heed what I’m going to tell you I’ll find ways to put you out of the running somehow.”

Camilla found herself growing very angry indeed, and her ancestral courage rose as the other girl grew more and more insolent. She was a trifle white around her lips, and her eyes grew dark and unsmiling, but otherwise there was no change in her appearance.

“Wouldn’t it be a good thing if you were to explain what this is all about?” she asked quietly.

“Oh, you’re terribly innocent, aren’t you? You don’t need any explanation. I know your kind. A girl of your type doesn’t pick up the son of a millionaire and make him take her to the place where I saw you last week with Jeff Wainwright without knowing just what it’s all about.”

Camilla was thankful that she was not a blushing girl. She could fairly well depend upon herself to grow perhaps whiter in an emergency but not red, and now, though her heart gave a sudden lurch and seemed to turn right over in her angry young breast, she kept her poise and looked steadily into the eye of the other girl, who had taken out a gold cigarette case, lit a cigarette, and was puffing it furiously at her foe.

“I don’t understand you,” said Camilla coolly. “It is quite a common circumstance, isn’t it, for a girl to go out to dinner with a friend?”

“Friend?”
sneered the other girl. “You call him a friend, do you? That’s preposterous! I wonder what he would say if he could hear you? A man doesn’t make a friend out of every girl he plays around with! And don’t fancy he’ll ever marry you. He’s not the marrying kind. And besides all that, a man like that doesn’t seek a wife in the laboring class. You are not of his class. You are just a low-down working girl!”

Stephanie’s voice was like the hiss of a serpent.

Camilla was very angry indeed now. She wanted to rise and strike this insolent girl in the face. She wanted to scream and cry out at the insults that were being flung at her. She knew that both tears and hysterical laughter were hovering very near the surface, and she was holding her emotions back by the mere force of her will. She hoped her voice did not tremble as she answered calmly.

“I really hadn’t considered marrying him!” She took a deep breath, to steady herself. “You see,” she went on, “you are quite right about our not being of the same class. But you are mistaken about my being so terribly low born. It so happens that though I am working at present I really belong to royalty, and you know, perhaps, that it is not permitted that royalty should marry outside of royalty.”

There was just a little ring of triumph in the clear voice as Camilla gathered strength with her words. There was also a light in her eyes that somehow startled her visitor and made her pause in her angry torrent of insolence. Camilla was certain of herself and did not seem at all quelled by the taunts that had been flung at her. Camilla had a poise that the other girl had never known.

Stephanie Varrell surveyed her contemptuously, amazed that this mere fragment of the working classes should dare to stand out against her and smile in a superior way and answer back. Royalty! Could it be that there was some mistake?

“Royalty!” she sneered, looking her over from the tip of her shabby little brown shoes to the top of her perfectly groomed golden head. Camilla was always exquisitely dainty, even in her working hours. She had lovely hands most carefully cared for. Her nails were not stained red nor allowed to grow long and pointed like claws. They were artistically lovely hands, fascinating to watch. Camilla was neat and trim and stylish, too, even in the little brown knit dress, the work of her mother’s hands, that had served a long term of wear and still had time ahead. Camilla was a lady, and the other girl could not help seeing it. Just for the moment she was baffled. She looked as an angry bull might have looked when presented with a bunch of clover instead of the red rag he had been charging.

“Royalty? Are you then a foreigner?” As if that accounted for it.