The Flower Brides (12 page)

He didn’t say it would be a pleasure to take her. She was glad he didn’t. It made her feel that it was more of a business proposition. He was doing it because Aunt Marian had asked him to. That was easier to combat than a mere feeling of politeness.

“But truly,” she said, lifting her firm little chin with a kind of finality, “I don’t need you. I am quite capable of finding my way around alone and shall enjoy it—”

“I know,” he said, lifting a chin just as firm as hers, “but it just can’t be. Aunt Marian would worry like the dickens, you know, and you couldn’t really see half as much and not as easily alone as if I went with you. I can see I’m not the most desirable companion you might have, but I’m capable, really, and I guess you’ll have to put up with me for the time being as I’m all there is. I’ll promise to be just as little trouble as possible. I’ll be around in ten minutes and wait out in front for you.” He finished with a nice grin that almost made her like him and, turning, hurried out through the hall, grabbing his coat and hat from a chair as he passed through the door.

“My dear!” said Mrs. Brooke. “That wasn’t very gracious of you.”

“Well, Mother, I can’t see why I have to be forced into a position that neither of us wants. Can’t you see he doesn’t want to go? Of course, he’s very polite and all that, but it must be a terrible bore to take a strange girl around sight-seeing. I know he hates it. And so do I. I shan’t enjoy it at all if I have to go with him. I’d much rather go by myself. I feel as if the whole trip is being spoiled, having him here, anyway!”

“Oh, my dear!” said Mrs. Brooke, a quick shadow coming over the brightness of her face. “I don’t see why you should feel that way. He really is a very fine young man with splendid ideals and standards. I cannot see why you cannot be courteous and grateful even if you don’t think he is just crazy to take you out. I should think just Christian courtesy would show you that you should be gracious and sweet for these few hours and make him have as pleasant a time as you can, while he serves you as host in the place of your relatives who are absent.”

Marigold stood unhappily looking down at the toes of her pretty new shoes and feeling as uncomfortable as if she were a naughty little girl being reprimanded.

“Oh, I suppose so, Mother,” she said, drawing a long sigh of surrender. “Don’t look that way, Mother! I’ll be good. Only I thought when neither of us wanted to do it there would be some way out.”

“Not courteously, dear,” said her mother reproachfully.

“All right, Mother, forget it, and look happy. I’ll be a good child. Go on up to Aunt Marian and have a good time. I’ll try to amuse the young man if that’s possible, but to tell you the truth, I think he prefers your company to mine.” She finished with a wry smile.

“Child!” said her mother, with a faint answering smile. “Run along and have a really good time. You can if you are willing!”

So Marigold hurried upstairs and put on her lovely brown ensemble with its sable collar and cuffs, tucking a fetching little orange flame of a scarf around her neck for a spot of bright color under her chin. Then she went down to meet Ethan Bevan with her head up and the fire of battle in her eyes.

However, Ethan Bevan scarcely seemed to see her as he helped her into the car. His own head was up, too, and if Marigold had looked she might have seen an answering fire of battle in his eyes. Ethan Bevan, to tell the truth, hadn’t much use for modern girls, and he took it for granted that Marigold was a modern girl.

So they started out on the pleasure trip with stark animosity between them, both determined to get the thing over with as quickly and creditably as possible.

“Now,” said Ethan as they drove away from the house into as beautiful a morning as had ever been born, “have you anything in mind you wanted to see, or shall I just take you the ordinary round of sights?”

“Oh,” said Marigold, speaking brightly but hating it all, “it isn’t especially important, is it? I had thought of the Capitol, and perhaps the library or Smithsonian, but any of the other buildings will be just as good if they are nearer. I want to give you the least trouble, of course. I’m really sorry to have been forced upon your hands for the morning, but won’t you please plan the trip in the way that will be pleasantest for you?”

He gave her an amused glance and studied her haughty young profile for an instant.

“All right!” he said gravely. “Only don’t worry about me. I’m still new enough to the city not to be bored anywhere. There’s always something of interest. Perhaps we’d better take a flying glimpse of the Capitol first and then use the time that’s left in the library, or get a glimpse of the museum. I promised Aunt Marian we would be back for lunch at one o’clock, and, of course, you can’t see everything in that time.”

“Of course not,” said Marigold in a formal, cold little tone.

“Here, for instance, is Corcoran Art Gallery,” he went on, “that white marble building on your right; and over there is the War Department. A lot of interesting things in there, but you need time for it all. There’s the South American Building, a fascinating place, with all sorts of exotic plants and live birds and monkeys. And over there”—he pointed off to the right and went on describing briefly the different buildings in sight, and Marigold, eager-eyed, tried to restrain her eagerness and answer calmly.

“You are a good salesman,” she said coolly. “I think I shall have to take a real vacation some week and come down and go through all these places.”

“It would benefit you, of course,” he said and turned a corner, sweeping back to Pennsylvania Avenue. “There is the Capitol again, just ahead of us. I always enjoy this view of it. It seems so impressive and so worthy of a great country’s executive building.”

Thus they discoursed stiffly and seriously, touching on politics in a general, vague way, as if neither of them cared much about it or felt the burden of their country’s policies. And then they reached the Capitol and went solemnly up the great white flight of stairs.

Marigold was filled with awe at her first approach to the beautiful marble structure, and she said very little, scarcely replying to her companion’s remarks. As they stepped inside the main rotunda, Marigold looked up and drew a soft breath of wonder.

“I am so glad!” she said softly, as if she were speaking to herself, quite off her guard.

“Glad?” said Ethan, studying her face as if he saw it for the first time and found in it what he had not caught before.

“Glad that it is just as impressive and wonderful as I had dreamed!” she explained. She was still talking as if to herself. She had for the moment forgotten her animosity and was speaking her innermost thoughts, as she might have spoken them to her mother or anyone she knew well.

“Yes,” he said gravely, “I can understand that feeling. It is good to have great things—representative things, like buildings that stand for something real—come up to one’s expectations. I remember I almost dreaded to come here and see this city about which I had heard so much, fearing it would disappoint me. This is the first time you have been in Washington?”

“No, I was here when I was a child,” said Marigold slowly, her eyes still studying the paintings in the dome, “but I doubt if they brought me
here
, or if they did I didn’t have any idea of what I was seeing. I was probably a tired child crying to go home.”

He looked at her in new interest and began to tell her what he knew of the great frescoes above them. They stood for some minutes looking up. Marigold forgot the personality of the one who was beside her and listened to what he said, her eyes wide with interest, indelibly stamping on her memory the wonderful paintings.

They roused to go on as groups of tourists came near with a guide and drove them from their position. They came presently to the hall of statuary and studied briefly the faces of the notables done in marble.

“I have an ancestor here somewhere whose name I bear, but he is so far back I cannot tell how he is related. Where is he? Oh yes. Ethan Allen! Here he is. One of the famous Green Mountain Boys, you know, of Revolutionary times.”

“Oh yes,” said Marigold. “I know. Father had an old book called
Green Mountain Boys
. I loved it. It was a grand story. And what a fine face he has!”

Their talk was just then interrupted by a group of men meeting nearby and greeting one another.

“There! There’s the senator from your state,” whispered Ethan, touching Marigold lightly on the shoulder. “I had him pointed out to me the other day.”

They lingered for a moment watching these important personages and then went on to visit the House of Representatives and catch a brief glimpse of laws in the making. Then across to the Senate for a little visit, returning to the Supreme Court room in time to see those great men walk into their places and hear the highest court opened for the day’s session. It was all most fascinating to Marigold, and she would have stayed all morning, but finally Ethan asked if she was willing to go on, and they slipped quietly out and came again to the great rotunda where they had entered.

“We have been longer than I intended at this,” said Ethan, glancing at his watch. “I am afraid you won’t have time for much else this morning. It is almost half past twelve, and we are due back at the house again at one, you know.”

“Well, I’m glad I’ve seen all this,” said Marigold, lifting a sparkling face. “I wouldn’t have missed a minute of it. Is it time we started back at once? I’m satisfied to go.”

“Well, no, we have fifteen minutes left before we need actually start. How would you like to get up nearer to those paintings above us? There is scarcely time to go to another location. But perhaps you don’t like to climb stairs?”

“Oh, I’d love to go. I don’t mind climbing in the least.”

So they started up the narrow, winding way that led nearer to the dome. And as they walked, Ethan supported the girl’s arm lightly and they kept step, slowly up and up, in a great circle, until they reached the narrow gallery above, quite close to the wonderful paintings.

Marigold was not tired. She had enjoyed the rhythmic climb while Ethan told her more about those pictures of which he seemed to have made quite a study. They stood some minutes facing the outer wall, studying the blended colors of the masterpiece, thinking of the master who had stood up there on a scaffold so many years before, laying on the pigment and leaving behind his brush strokes the picture that had endured, and then Ethan looked at his watch and said, “Time’s up! We must go or we’ll be late. But before we go, turn around and look down at the place where you were standing a few minutes ago. It is interesting to see how small the people look from here.”

Marigold turned and looked down at the marble floor below her, and suddenly the tormenting nightmare of her horrible dream descended upon her and took her by the throat, petrifying her with fear. There was the great empty space below her just as she had dreamed and she on a little ledge out there hanging over that wide awful expanse. Almost she expected to see Laurie down there somewhere waving his hand at her and asking how she liked it up there. And in imagination the ledge on which she stood grew suddenly narrower beside her and vanished into nothing. She threw up her hands with a little cry of terror and covered her face, swaying backward, and everything turned black before her eyes.

T
here was no Laurie there to help her, but Ethan was there, and much more alert and ready than ever Laurie would have been. He sprang to catch her as her knees crumpled under her, and he lifted her in his strong arms, holding her firmly like a little child who needed comforting, holding her, turning her away from that awful space below them. He held her so for a second or two with her face against his rough tweed coat, as if by mere contact he would compel her fright to leave her, her senses to return. Then slowly, as if she had received new life from his strength, he felt her senses coming back to her and she began to tremble like a leaf.

“Oh, poor child!” he said softly, as if he were talking to himself. “I should not have brought you up here. The climb was too much for you!”

Suddenly, as if he understood better what was the matter, he turned with her still in his arms and began slowly to go down the stairs. Step by step he went, stopping now and again to look at her, until little by little she felt the assurance of his arms around her and slowly the color began to return to her face. When he next paused, her eyes fluttered open and looked into his own, the fright still there but fading slowly, as his eyes reassured her.

“It’s all right now,” he murmured gently, still in that same tone as one would speak to a little, frightened child. “We’re almost to the lower floor. Just a few more steps and we will be down.”

Surprisingly, she thrilled to the strength of the arms that were holding her and the tenseness relaxed.

She lay quite still and let the wonder of it roll over her, the relief of the end of her dream at last. Someone had saved her from that strange, maddening peril and showed her that she did not have to go on through all her life having at times to go back to the old problem of whether she would have to edge back over that ever-narrowing ledge that vanished before her feet or take the alternative of crashing down on the stone below at fearful speed and being blotted out in pain and darkness.

Gradually she ceased to tremble. And when he had reached the last step, he stopped and smiled down at her, saying pleasantly, “Now, it is all over. We are down! Are you feeling better?”

Her lashes trembled open, and she looked up at him with relief, murmuring, “Oh, I’m glad!”

The lashes swept down again, and suddenly a tear appeared beneath them and swelled out, making a pool in the violet shadows under her eyes.

“I’m so ashamed!” she murmured.

“You don’t need to be,” he said comfortingly. “I understand all about it. But there are some people coming this way. Are you able to stand if I hold you, or shall I just carry you out to the car this way?”

That brought her completely to herself.

“Oh, I can stand! Put me down, please!” she said in sudden panic.