The Flower Brides (9 page)

B
ut the day went by and there came no word from Laurie.

Mrs. Trescott had taken good care of that.

Her sister-in-law dropped by in the course of the morning.

“Well, Adele, are you all ready for the grand parade?” she asked sarcastically as she threw aside her coat and helped herself to some specimens of confectionery that had been sent up for selection.

“Mercy no!” said the harassed hostess, reaching out and choosing a luscious bit of sweet. “You can’t imagine what a lot of things can come up to make trouble. Here’s my new butler mad as a hatter because he’s got to wait on the caterer’s men tomorrow night, and threatening to leave; and Daniel Trescott saying he can’t have any peace in his own house with parties, and you know yourself, Irene, we haven’t had any besides my regular bridge afternoon in three weeks. I can’t see why your mother didn’t bring her son up better! Men are so selfish!”

“Yes?” said Irene dryly. “I suppose you’re looking out that you don’t repeat the trouble with Laurie.”

“Indeed I am!” said Laurie’s mother. “I told him only this morning that since I was taking all this trouble for him he ought at least to help me out a little with the guest of honor. Sometimes I wonder why I do things for other people. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t been brought up to be so unselfish.” She gave a heavy sigh and took another piece of candy.

“Oh yes?” said Irene, lifting her brows in a way that made her look exasperatingly like Laurie. Mrs. Trescott hated to think either of her children looked like the Trescotts. She wanted them to be like her family.

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know why I do so much for people when they are so ungrateful. I don’t know why I took all this trouble to have this party tomorrow night. I don’t believe Robena is a bit grateful, either.”

“Yes you do, Adele!” said Irene. “You know perfectly well that you did it to shake Laurie free from that rowdy little Marigold. By the way, has she replied to her invitation?”

“Oh yes, replied all right, jumped at the chance. ‘Miss Brooke accepts with pleasure.’ And then, what do you think came in just now from her? Regrets! Can you
imagine
it? After she had accepted! Now what do you make of that? Do you suppose she hadn’t money to get the right kind of gown? I understand they’re very poor.”

“That’s odd!” said Irene, struggling with a particularly sticky caramel. “No, I don’t believe it’s that. I tell you she’s clever. She could make a dress you couldn’t tell from Paris, if she wanted to. Doesn’t she give any reason?”

“‘A sudden change of circumstances,’” quoted the mother, lifting Marigold’s note with a disdainful thumb and finger as if it might contaminate. “I declare it’s discouraging, after all the trouble I’ve taken, and now to have her drop right out of the picture—all my work for nothing.”

“I’m not so sure it isn’t better for your plans,” said the sister-in-law thoughtfully. “She’s a clever piece and very fetching. She could put it all over that selfish beast of a Robena if she tried, although I’m not so sure but she’s too well bred to try.”

“What do you mean, Irene?”

“Oh, nothing at all, Adele. Wait till you see her sometime and you’ll understand. Does Laurie know she isn’t coming?”

“No, he doesn’t, and I don’t intend he shall. Not till it’s too late for him to walk out on me. And don’t you tell him, either! You’re the only one who knows it, and if he finds out I’ll know who told him.”

“What if the girl herself tells him?”

“Well, I’ll take good care to keep him so busy she won’t have a chance. He’s out now showing Robena the sights. She hasn’t ever been here before, and so there’s plenty to see. She’s wise to the situation, too. I gave her a quiet hint, and she certainly is a good ally. She doesn’t give him a minute even to call up on the telephone. We’ve managed so far to keep him away from it entirely, but Robena plans to follow him if the girl calls him up or anything and be around to hear what is said.”

“You surely make a lot of trouble,” said Irene. “She isn’t the only undesirable girl around these parts, and at that I’m not so sure she is so undesirable as she might be.”

“Irene! A poor minister’s daughter!”

“There are worse!” said Irene, lighting a cigarette.

“Well of course, but you know my son wouldn’t look at a girl like that!”

“Wouldn’t he? How do you know?”

“Irene! And you can talk that way about your own nephew?”

“Why, Adele, I wasn’t talking about him, I was talking about human nature. I haven’t much faith in human nature, not in these days, anyway.”

“But don’t you think it makes any difference how a child is born and brought up, my dear?”

“Not much!” said the sister-in-law. “I used to believe that bunk, but when I saw the way some of my friends got bravely over their training I decided there wasn’t so much to it as I had been taught.”

“I do wish you wouldn’t utter such sentiments, Irene. It isn’t respectable to say things like that!”

“Oh, very well, I take it all back; perhaps it was the fault of the upbringing after all. It didn’t go more than skin deep. But I still say if you would stop trying to manage Laurie and simply take his pocket money away and make him go to work, you would have better results. However, I’m only an old maid, and I’m not supposed to know how to bring up children, though if I didn’t do a better job of it than some people I know, I’d be willing to pay a fine. But what I’d like to know is: after you get Laurie pried loose from this penniless little person, how are you going to prevent his falling in love with something worse?”

“Really, Irene, I don’t like the way you talk. I’m sorry I mentioned it at all. I’d rather not say anything more about it.”

“Well, I’m just leaving now, anyway. Give my love to Laurie-boy; and tell him to drop in and see his young aunt someday, and I’ll give him some good advice. But perhaps you’d rather not as I’m afraid I’d advise him to stick to his Marigold and get out and go to work for her.”

“I certainly would rather not!” said the mother severely. “If I thought you meant all you say I certainly should be grieved about it. By the way, I wish you’d run over and take a hand at bridge some evening while Robena is here. Can’t you? Say Friday evening?”

“I’m afraid not, Adele. I might contaminate your child! Besides, I can’t abide that double-faced Robena, and I’m afraid I’d let her know it before the evening was over. Bye-bye! I wish you well in your campaign, but I think I see disappointment of some sort lurking around the corner for you!”

Irene put on her coat and went out smiling ironically, and Mrs. Trescott looked after her deeply annoyed.

Oh, dear me!
she sighed,
why does she always have to be so unpleasant? She wears on my spirit; I’m so susceptible to moods! Now I’m all worn out. She’s exactly like her brother! Always saying sarcastic things, and I’m not quite sure what she means by them! She’s tired me unutterably. And in some ways Laurie is just like her. Always thinks he’s entirely right. Dear me! I hope he doesn’t find out his little paragon has sent regrets. If we can only get him through Saturday night, I think he will come out all right. By that time he will get over his prejudice against Robena. I can see she’s making good headway. I caught his glance this morning when she came over and stood in the window with him and asked him if he wasn’t going to give her a good-morning kiss, and I actually believe if I hadn’t come into the room just then he would have done it. Once let him get to wooing Robena and he’ll be safe from all the little penniless designers anywhere. Robena is one who knows how to hold her own
.

As Irene Trescott walked down the street in the morning sunshine, she was wondering about Laurie. Would he really be won away from his pretty little schoolteacher by that bold flirt? Well, perhaps it was just as well, for he would probably break the other girl’s heart if he stuck to her long enough to marry her. He never would have the courage to do it if his mother cut off his fortune or even threatened to. Irene loved her nephew, but she knew his limitations and had no illusions about him. He was a chip off the old block in more ways than one.

The morning went on, and Marigold at her desk in the schoolroom was conscious of an undercurrent of excitement. Even her small pupils noticed it and thought how pretty she looked with her cheeks so red and her eyes so bright.

For somehow Marigold had become increasingly certain that Laurie was going to call up pretty soon and make everything right, and if so, all the rest would surely work out beautifully somehow. Mother would understand. Mother always did!

But the morning wore on, recess, and then noon, and no Laurie. Afternoon session closed, and no message in the office for Marigold, though she stopped and inquired on her way out.

Well, perhaps he would call later. But, of course, with guests in the house and his mother demanding things of him, possibly he couldn’t get away. She probably ought to realize, too, that since he had said he might not be able to come for a day or two that he thought he had made it plain to her not to expect him. And perhaps he hadn’t been noticing the replies to the invitations. Of course, that was it. It wouldn’t enter his head but that she was coming. Well, it was just as well that she was going away, perhaps. She ought not to let Laurie feel too sure of her.

So she coaxed herself to put away all thoughts of Laurie and the party and enter into her mother’s preparations with at least a semblance of eagerness.

She found her mother waiting on the corner, the suit box in her hand, eyeing the great show window of François’s with hesitancy.

“Don’t you think perhaps you had better just take these back, dear, and let us go to some cheaper place for what I want?” she asked in a troubled voice.

“Not a bit of it,” said Marigold. “You like these dresses, and you’re going to have them. Come on!” And she breezed her mother through the big plate glass door and introduced her to Madame, who treated her like the lady she was and thereby more than won the daughter’s heart.

The shopping tour was a success from every point of view, and they had a good time every minute, both of them. There was something about Marigold today that her mother did not quite understand, something that restrained Mrs. Brooke from protesting against the pretty little accessories that the daughter was determined to buy for her and kept her feeling that she must play the game and give her child a good time to make up somehow for this mysterious sacrifice of the party that she still seemed so set upon. For she sensed the undertone of excitement, the firm set of the young lips, the determined sparkle in the bright eyes, and knew that underneath somewhere there was pain. Please God, it might be pain that led to something better, but still it was pain, and she must help all she could.

So they went happily through the shopping—shoes and hats and gloves—each urging some sweet little extra extravagance on the other. After all, what were a few dollars more or less if it helped her girl to go through the fire? And if it turned out that it wasn’t fire after all, well, the gloves and shoes and hats would be needed sometime and were all good buys.

A roomy suitcase of airplane-luggage style and an overnight bag to match were the final purchases, and they put their smaller parcels into them and carried them home with them.

“Now,” said Marigold firmly, as they got out of the bus at the corner near their home, “we are stopping at the tearoom for dinner. No, you needn’t protest. You are tired and hungry and so am I, and we have a lot to do tonight. Besides, I happen to know there isn’t much in the refrigerator for dinner tonight, and I forgot to telephone the order. This is my party, and I want you to be good and enjoy it.”

So Mrs. Brooke smilingly submitted again, and they had a steak and hot rolls and ice cream and coffee.

“It
is
a party!” said the mother, leaning wearily back in her chair, “and we’re having a lovely time!”

She noticed as they started to walk the few steps from the tearoom at the corner to their own small apartment a few doors up the block that Marigold had suddenly quickened her step and was noticeably silent. She sensed that the child was hoping that Laurie had telephoned.