The Flower Brides (40 page)

“Now, come in. I’m hungry as a bear, and I want to tell you the result of my day and what I’m to do tomorrow. I’ve got a chance at a big opportunity if I can make good. I’ve got to start early in the morning, however, in order to see a man before he leaves for a week’s absence. I wish I could take you with me, for it’s going to be a beautiful drive and I know you would enjoy it, but I can’t tell how long I’ll be, and I may have to go farther and be very late getting back, so I guess I won’t risk it this first time. But pretty soon now we can have some good long drives together after I get this buggy tried out. There comes a taxi. They must be having guests at the great house.”

“It’ll maybe be the master returning,” said the mother, looking toward the taxi as it came on. “The Scotch woman said he was away on business.”

“Then he’s brought someone home with him,” said Gordon, turning to look at the car as it sped by. “There’s a lady with him.”

“Some relative, probably. I haven’t seen any of them today. They must have been getting ready for company.”

They entered the immaculate little kitchen with its pleasant scent of some sweet pastry baking, mingled with cinnamon and cooking apples.

“A baked apple dumpling, Mother, am I right?” said Gordon eagerly. “Nothing could be better. I hope you made plenty of sauce.”

“Yes, there’s plenty of sauce,” laughed his mother, as she stopped to take out the fragrant steaming dish. “And I’ve made a wee salad out of some bits of chicken I saved, and there are roast potatoes. Here’s the fork. Take them out, and don’t forget to crack them and let out the steam.”

A moment more and they were seated at their pleasant supper table, their heads bent in thanksgiving. While up at the great house the taxi had deposited its travelers and presently went speeding by on its way back to the station.

Diana had turned from the window when she saw them get out of the car, and she stood there frozenly awaiting them. She had a strong impression now that she should go into the hall and meet them, say something, do something appropriate, but somehow she had lost the power to move. It was as if she had suddenly become petrified. The power of speech seemed to have gone, too, for when she heard her father’s voice saying in vexed tones, “Well, I wonder where she is,” the cry with which her heart wanted to greet him died in her throat. He seemed a stranger, an alien, and not her father whom she loved so dearly.

Then a light laugh with a sneer in the tail of it like the venom of a serpent stung her with the old deadly hatred, and she swayed and would have fallen had she not reached her hands back and clutched the windowsill with her cold, frightened fingers.

A step and they were in the doorway scanning the room, her father’s eyes upon her where she stood. Her face was white with anguish, her eyes dark and tortured, her sensitive lips trembling.

He looked at her questioningly, his glance changing into sternness. Then his voice, stern and displeased, spoke: “Well? Diana, is that the way you welcome us?”

With a cry like a hurt thing, now Diana sprang forward, her eyes on her father, threw her arms around his neck, drew his face down and kissed his cheek, then buried her face on his shoulder and burst into tears, as she clung helplessly to him.

His arm stealing softly, almost gently around her in the old, familiar way upheld her for the moment and steadied her quivering shoulders that shook with her sobs.

Then that light, mocking laugh fell on her senses again, and the pain stung back into her heart.

“Oh, my word! Diana,” trilled the bride in a penetrating voice that found her senses through her sobs, “are you still such a child that you have to go into hysterics? A great big girl like you to be acting like that! I should think you’d be ashamed.”

The comforting arm that had held her close for an instant in such a reassuring clasp and the caressing hand that had been laid on her sorrowful young head suddenly ceased their tender contact, and her father pushed her from him as one would a naughty child.

“For heaven’s sake, Diana, be a woman, can’t you?’” he said in low, vexed tones that showed plainly that he was displeased that she should be laying herself open to criticism right at the start.

His words stung her into silence. She felt shamed and sick that she should have given way. She drew her quivering breath in and realized that she was alone against these two and she need no more expect her father to be on her side in anything. It had come just as she had foreseen it would, only she hadn’t thought it would come so soon.

She lifted her head and stepped back, brushing the tears away with her hand and lifting a proud young chin that no longer quivered.

“I’m sorry!” she said coldly, and gave her father a look as alien as his own. Then, with sudden self-control, she added, as if they were stranger-guests, “Dinner is ready to serve whenever you wish it. Will you go upstairs first?”

“No!” said Helen decidedly. “We’ll eat at once. I’m starved. We’ll go upstairs after dinner. I want to give a few directions before we leave. We’re not staying here tonight, you know. Come!”

Diana gave her a bleak glance, and they went out to the dining room, Helen leading the way as if she had always done so. She was still wearing her hat, and she drew her gloves off as she went.

Diana watched her take the mistress’s place at the table as a matter of course, and reaching out, change the position of several dishes as if they offended her. Then she gave a quick glance at the table and a mocking smile came on her lips.

“I’m glad you didn’t put out those hideous old dishes that you always considered the company set. I’ve always secretly wished to take those out and smash them, and now I think that will be one of the first things I’ll do.”

She laughed as she said it, flashing her little white teeth between her red, red lips and twinkling her eyes at her husband amusedly in the way she had of saying outrageous things and making them pass for a joke before those whom she wanted to deceive.

Mr. Disston answered her look with a grave, worried smile. It was evident he saw nothing in her words but pleasantry. But Maggie, coming in at that moment with her tray, heard and fully understood, and the red flamed into her cheeks; her blue eyes with the wet lashes of recently shed tears, angry tears, flashed fire, as much as blue kindly eyes could flash. But she shut her thin lips and went about her serving.

Diana had slipped into the third seat and was trying beneath the tablecloth to keep her trembling hands still and her lips from quivering. She found her teeth suddenly inclined to chatter, and she had to hold herself tense to keep from trembling like a leaf.

Helen, after the first taste of her fruit appetizer, gave her attention to her new stepdaughter.

“For heaven’s sake, Diana, you haven’t gone ascetic on us, have you?” she asked flippantly. “Why such somber garb? I don’t object to black, of course. It’s smart just now, but that isn’t smart what you have on. It’s just a dud. It isn’t your type and not a bit becoming. I’ll have to get at you and reconstruct your wardrobe, I see. We can’t have you around looking like that.”

Her father looked up and surveyed her critically.

“Yes,” he said, “Diana, it does seem as if you might have dressed up a little more festively on an occasion like this.” He gave her a cold look that was meant to show her how disappointed he was in her, and Diana suddenly choked and, for an instant, was on the point of fleeing to her own room.

“Don’t speak to her, Stephen, she’s got the jitters,” laughed the new mother in an amused tone. “Let her alone till she gets her bearings. Can’t you see she’s all upset, just as I told you she’d be? Let’s talk about something else. What time did you say that train to the shore goes? I want plenty of time to give Diana my directions after dinner.”

Diana regained a semblance of calm and went on pretending to eat, and the meal dragged its slow progress to the end, the conversation a mere dialogue about trifles between her father and the new wife. Diana sat there listening and realizing more and more how utterly out of things she was intended to be from now on, hardening her heart to the thought, struggling to look as if she did not mind. Perhaps it was the knowledge that she was affording so much wicked amusement to her new stepmother that made it so much harder to bear even than she had expected.

Diana felt as if she were a long way off looking at herself, analyzing her own feelings, reasoning out things, trying to look dispassionately at the whole situation and create a philosophy about it that would make her able to live in spite of it all. She fixed her eyes on the olive dish and tried to say to herself what a beautiful dish it was, how well it set off the dark green of the olives, what handsome olives they were, anything just to keep her mind away from what was happening and get her through the ordeal until they left. Oh, she was glad, glad they were going away that night. She was tired, so tired with emotion and hard work that she could hardly hold her head up. She wanted to close her eyes, to lie down and rest from the unshed tears that hurt her so much more than if they had been shed. She wanted to get rested enough to think out what had happened to her and try to get where she could do the right thing. That was what she had prayed for, that she might do the right thing. Where was God that He had not answered her prayer?

Well, perhaps such prayers as hers had no right to be answered. Probably God hadn’t time for little personal troubles.

She tried so hard to sit up and look pleasant but only succeeded in being dispassionate. Her hurt eyes looked out upon the two, the one who was so dear and the one who was not, with torture in them and met no comforting glance to help her back into a normal attitude. And when they rose to leave the table her father said in low, displeased tones, “I certainly am disappointed in you, Diana!”

It needed only those words to make Diana feel that life and happiness for her had come to an end and the only thing she could possibly hope to do was to get creditably through the rest of the evening and then crawl into a hole somewhere and die. She felt as if she had received her death blow from her father’s attitude and words.

“Now, we’re going upstairs!” said Helen. “Come, Diana, I want to get this over with and be on our way!”

Diana wanted to get it over with, too, so she followed silently up the stairs after the bride, who skipped up lightly as if she were enjoying herself.

“No, not in there!” she said sharply, as Diana swung the door of her father’s room open and switched on the light. “I never liked that room. I’m going to take the room across the hall when I come back.”

“Oh, but that is my room,” said Diana quietly.

“I know,” said Helen amusedly. “I have a perfectly good memory. But it’s going to be my room now. I’ve got it all arranged. Your father and I talked it over, and we decided to give you an apartment on the third floor. Then we can take this whole floor ourselves, and you can feel more independent. We’re doing the whole house over soon, anyway. And then you can arrange the third floor as you like and have a place to receive your friends and entertain as much as you like without interfering with us.”

“I wouldn’t care for that, Helen,” said Diana with sudden spirit. “I’d rather keep my own room. Mother had it done over for me just before she died, and I feel more at home there than anywhere else.”

“Oh, indeed!” laughed Helen amiably. “Well, you’ll have to get used to feeling at home somewhere else, then, for that’s the room I’m going to have. In fact, I’m using the whole second floor myself, so you may as well understand it. I shall have lots of guests and shall need every inch of space, so that’s that. Take it or leave it as you like, but you rate the third floor.”

Helen stepped across the hall and swung Diana’s door open, glancing around the lovely room with satisfaction.

“You can leave this furniture and hangings just as they are. They’re not so bad! I may use them entire for a guest room. It’s rather a good color scheme. And you can take the furniture from your father’s room up to the third floor for yourself. I never did care for it, and I suppose you’ll like it for its association!” She gave another mocking smile and turned back to the other room. “That was what I wanted to tell you: you’re to hire someone and have everything from here moved to the third story. You can arrange it as you like, of course. It’ll be your domain for a while. You’ll be getting married soon yourself, I suppose, but until then you can fix that floor to suit yourself.”

Diana stood and stared at her, a frozen look upon her face, utterly appalled at the attitude the new mistress was daring to take toward her on this the very first night in the house. It seemed as if some enemy had her by the throat. She could not think of any reply that would be adequate. Her lips seemed to be sealed. Even if she knew what to say, she felt that no sound would come from her. It was as if her vocal chords were paralyzed, as if her whole being were turning to stone. Her feelings were beyond mere indignation. This thing that was being said to her was incredible. Surely her father would interfere. And yet, and yet, so well she knew this woman who had been set over her that she felt her strength draining from the tips of her fingers. She felt as if in a moment more she would lose her power to stand upright and would fall over on her face, stiff and rigid like a statue. Then, suddenly, because she must do something, she fell to laughing, a wild hysterical little giggle, ending in a real fit of laughter.

Helen gave her a startled stare then took hold of her arm and gave her a fierce shake until Diana’s teeth chattered.

“Stop that!” said Helen. “You needn’t think you can get your father’s sympathy by any such carryings on as that. He’ll see through that ruse, and you can’t get your way by carrying on, no matter how many hysterics you have. And another thing. It’s time you stopped kissing your father like a little girl! It’s ridiculous! You! A great big girl! Besides, I don’t like it!”

Diana yielded herself to the shaking, relaxing into a hall chair, the laughter ceasing as suddenly as it had begun. She lifted her hands and pressed them to her quivering lips. The tears were very near the surface, and she wanted to fend them off. She must not cry in front of Helen. That would please her more than anything else. She must not let her father hear her. There must be a way to behave that would give dignity to this humbling occasion.