The Flower Brides (89 page)

The way led inland later in the day, after a dip in the sea and a romp on the beach and then a rest on the sand. Inland, among the palms and the taller pines, which now were draped more thickly with the long gray moss. Other, stranger trees appeared also, and the way grew wild and picturesque. Strange blossoms peered up at them from the ground; strange, lovely, weird ones peered down at them from the branches above their heads. Orchids! Those were orchids! Green orchids with almost human faces!

Jeffrey thought of white orchids with gold hair and deep brown eyes, and her way of holding aloof in another world.

The way led through dense tropical undergrowth, where lovely vines trailed across and barred the way with strong yet gentle hands and yellow jasmine filled the air with heavenly perfume. More orchids looking down in stranger color combinations looked more like humans than the first ones. And Jeffrey thought of a girl with dark eyes and wished she were beside him, and wondered if it would be at all possible to pack a box with these wonderful orchids and hope to get them to her before they died?

Glimpses of wild creatures they had, of deer and little beings of the forest. A bright eye, the whisk of a tail, a stirring leaf, and they were out of sight. Glimpses of serpents, slithering along their native haunts, big copperheads and rattlers. Once they stopped to take a lesson on snakes, on what to do in case of being attacked and how to render first aid. A large copperhead lay coiled below them in a little hollow by a log while they were listening, and Jeffrey marveled at the skill of the young teacher in controlling the harum-scarum boys in order to give them the most out of his teaching. And then, just as if he had been trained for the act, the big creature uncoiled his lengths and slid away beneath the undergrowth, and the boys stepped back with eyes large with a new understanding, more ready to meet possible danger, less cocksure of their own little human might pitted against real deadly peril.

Their eyes grew wise and sharp, looking for the signs of enemy life about them, learning to know the names of the growing things they passed. How much the young leader knew, and how well he told it without seeming to be trying to impart knowledge! No wonder his price was large and it was difficult to get opportunity to join his groups.

A stream developed later in the day as they climbed over fallen logs. The stream in time led to a lake, clear, sparkling, like a jewel in the forest, and here canoes awaited them, and they saw their first Indian guide.

Almost in awe they took their places as ordered and sat quiet, full of deep satisfaction, too weary to disobey.

They touched in a little while upon a shore and saw not far away a huge alligator lying dormant, partly out of the water. Storybook life was becoming real to these boys.

There were crude accommodations for camping, and a fire was all ready to start near the shore. Two old Indians muttered unintelligible phrases to the young leader, and presently the tired boys were eating a supper of fish from the lake cooked over the fire, bread that they had brought with them, and fruit, oranges that had been sent on ahead.

It was suddenly dark before they had finished, and they had only the light of the fire to eat by when they got to the oranges. Just as if somebody had touched a button and the light went out, so the sun had dropped down out of sight and left not a vestige of gleam behind. That was Florida.

John Saxon had been collecting pine knots before this happened, and now he stuck several in the fire until they caught, then set them here and there in buckets of sand.

They washed their dishes in lake water, looking furtively toward the place where the alligator basked, and then sat round the fire while the moon rose, a mammoth moon, from behind the forest across the lake. John Saxon, reclining near one of the pine knot torches, took a little book from his pocket and read how a man of the Pharisees, one Nicodemus, came to Jesus by night and asked Him the way of salvation, and He answered, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Jeffrey Wainwright, wearier than he ever remembered having been before yet greatly charmed with this weird, strange place of stillness and night, had been watching the scene indifferently. He was thinking that for once this wise, magnetic leader had made a great mistake in trying to do any reading with those tired boys after a day’s march and excitement. Studying the strong, fine face of the other young man, he fell to wondering how he’d gotten that way, anyway. He was not listening intently until he heard that phrase, “born again,” and suddenly he sat up sharply and began to listen.

On through that simple story he listened, through those matchless words that have reached round the world in every language and reached down through the ages from God for everybody: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

He listed to the condemnation that comes through refusing the light. Only a few verses, but so impressive, there with that moon looking down; the glinting silver of the lake ahead; and the black, still darkness of the forest shutting in, where the firelight flickered solemnly and a far, strange bird let forth a weird night cry. He could see that even the weary boys were impressed and liked it all. Their leader had hold enough upon them for that, after a long day’s march!

The little book was closed and stuck back in John Saxon’s pocket, and his voice suddenly started a chorus:

The rich tones died away, and the leader’s head bent reverently. “Lord, we’re glad You love us and understand us all. We’re glad we can come to You for forgiveness of our sins, for cleansing, for strength by the way, and wisdom. And now tonight we come for rest, for blessing, for protection through the night. We ask it in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior.”

It was very still when the prayer was over, and for an instant no boy stirred. Then Saxon said in his ordinary voice, “Now, boys, every man to his cot. Five minutes to get ready and five to get quiet!”

Jeffrey lay on his hard cot that was too short for his length and felt a great peace settle down upon him. Outside the pine knots sputtered and flared, and the fire flickered and flamed up when the old Indian watchman fed it with more pine knots, and the silver moon shone on, but there was quiet in the camp.

His brother Sam was in the next tent, but in the cot beside him little Carlin de Harte reached out a timid hand and touched Jeff.

“You don’t think God would let that alligator get in our tent, do you? Nor the old long snake?” he whispered.

Then Jeffrey’s hand came out and clasped the lean, young hand of the child and held it warmly.

“No, kid, I don’t think he would!” said Jeffrey. “You go to sleep now, and I’ll help God watch!”

The boy sighed contentedly, and soon his regular breathing told Jeffrey that his fears were over for that night. But Jeffrey lay thinking of the words he had been hearing and of Camilla and what she had said about being born again. Was this what she had meant, and was it something that came to you or did you have to go out after it? He would listen and see if he could find out, for this was what he had come questing for. And presently Jeffrey, too, was sleeping.

B
ack at the fashionable resort that Jeffrey Wainwright had left that morning, Stephanie Varrell patrolled the beach in vain, in vain questioned this one and that one if they had seen him that morning. She searched the golf course, the tennis courts, and even the airport, and put the bellboys and desk clerks through a regular inquisition to discover whether he had left yet, but she found out nothing at all about the disappearance of the heir of the house of Wainwright.

At last, when everything else had failed, she approached Jeff’s dignified mother, who was sitting with her knitting on the wide veranda talking quietly with two of her friends. She assumed a honeyed smile and said, “Pardon me, Mrs. Wainwright, I’m sorry to interrupt, but we’ve an expedition on for this afternoon, and we’re anxious to find Jeff. Of course he’s included, and we can’t seem to place him. Could you give us an idea where to look?”

Mrs. Wainwright looked up when she had finished counting her stitches and studied Stephanie up and down, much as Stephanie might have looked at another whom she considered beneath her notice, and then said coldly, “My son is away today.”

“Oh really!” said Stephanie in well-assumed surprise. “He didn’t mention any such thing last night when I talked with him. Could you tell me when you expect him back?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Jeffrey’s mother, her voice still colder and more disapproving. “He may be away several days or even longer. He wasn’t sure when he left!”

“Oh!” said Stephanie, a pretty dismay in her voice but with a mean gleam in her jacinth eyes. “He—hasn’t gone back north yet, has he? Oh, I hope not.”

Again Mrs. Wainwright favored her with another cool scrutiny.

“Well, not yet!” she admitted with a slight shrug of her shoulders. “But, of course, he’s liable to be called back almost any time. You’d better not base any of your plans on his movements, for he’s a very uncertain quantity at present.” And she turned with a haughty little laugh addressed to her two friends, as if the unsought interview was now terminated.

Stephanie stood wistfully for a moment, posing in the attitude of bewildered disappointment, and then with a narrowing of her jacinth eyes and a slight, almost imperceptible shrug of her own pretty shoulders, she walked away.

She went to the farthest corner of the hotel patio she could find, which was on the sea side, and stared out into the sparkling blue for a few minutes, her thoughts growing more intense as her slender brows drew into a deep frown. Then she rose hastily and made her way to the telephone booths, calling up her lawyer in New York.

She had to wait a long time before he could be located, but at last she heard his voice, and she spoke haughtily. “Mr. Glyndon, I want you to go out and purchase a piece of real estate for me! I want it no matter what it costs, and I want the matter attended to today. I want to get it without fail at once, and you needn’t wait to communicate with me and tell me it isn’t worth buying at any price, for I know that now. But it’s worth
anything to me
, anything I have to pay. I have private reasons for wanting it, and I don’t care whether it is a good buy or not. Do you get me?”

Mr. Glyndon got her. He had had dealings with her before and knew what to expect unless he did her bidding. “Where is the property?”

Stephanie gave him the address that had been on Jeff’s letter that she had burned in her ashtray. “And listen, Mr. Glyndon, there are tenants in that house, and I want them to vacate immediately. Offer them any kind of a bonus you have to get out at once. I want the house vacant by the end of the week. See? Even if you have to
move
them.”

Mr. Glyndon tried to protest, but Stephanie was firm.

“It isn’t as if it wasn’t my own money, Mr. Glyndon,” reminded Stephanie, “nor as if I didn’t have enough to do what I want with it. Buy it today, please, and telegraph me tonight how you came out. But you’ve
got
to come out, understand? Good-bye, Mr. Glyndon.”

Stephanie left the telephone booth with a gleam of danger to somebody in her jacinth eyes and, donning her most daring bathing suit, went down to the beach to captivate some new and interesting admirer in the interim.

When Mr. Whitlock got back to the office Monday morning a new Marietta was already there, her typewriter burnished for action, a large, neat pile of finished typing lying in regular order on the end of her desk, and she herself seated at work upon some routine typing that was always on hand to fill in between special work.

She looked up as he entered, and he looked her straight in the face but did not know her. He stood there staring for a second, hesitating, about to ask her what she was doing there, when Camilla came in from the cloakroom and handed her a paper. “There it is, Marietta. I must have dropped it in the closet Saturday.”

Then Camilla saw Mr. Whitlock and gave him a pleasant good morning, almost breaking down with laughter at the astonished look on his face. His expression fully repaid her for her hard work in getting Marietta into shape.

He smiled with that nice light in his eyes when he spoke to Camilla, and then he turned back to Marietta.

“Ah, Miss Pratt,” he said pleasantly, “I see you have been acting on some of my suggestions. And I’m glad to see you’ve got the work done. That’s going to help out a lot, for I’ve got a busy day before me, and I want those letters to get off at once.”

A little later he came over to Camilla’s desk, and after giving her several directions about the work that morning, he said in a low tone that could not be heard over Marietta’s industrious clicking, “Good work! I’m delighted! I didn’t think it could be done!”