The Flower Brides (95 page)

Whitlock was very pleasant. He seemed to enjoy the home cooking and took second helpings. He enjoyed the homemade bread, the little white creamed onions, and the pumpkin pie for dessert. He praised the coffee, too, and said few people knew how to make good coffee.

When the meal was over, however, he did not go into the kitchen to help with the dishes as Wainwright had done. Camilla gave him no opportunity. She shut the door sharply and decidedly on the dining room and kitchen and led both mother and guest firmly into the living room. Somehow she didn’t want Mr. Whitlock to help in that intimate way. It didn’t seem fitting.

However, he showed no desire to help. He seemed to take it as a matter of course that they were done with dishes for the night, and he sat for a couple of hours talking with Camilla and her mother, most interestingly, telling incidents of a trip abroad, describing pictures and statuary he had seen, giving details of his visits to historic places of interest.

It was almost like attending a delightful lecture, and both Camilla and her mother enjoyed it, yet when he rose to go a little before ten o’clock, Camilla felt relieved. It had somehow been a strain, for while he was there it seemed as if every flaw and crudity of the little house stood out like a sore thumb.

“Well, he’s very nice,” commented her mother as they watched through the snow-blurred window and saw him drive away. “I’m glad you have a good clean-minded man like that to work for. It makes me feel safer about you when you are away. It certainly was kind of him to come all the way out here to protect you.”

“I didn’t need protection,” laughed Camilla, “and I was scared to death to have him stay to dinner lest it was hash night. How did you happen to have chicken tonight, Mother dear? It isn’t a gala night. I never expect chicken except on a holiday.”

“Well, the egg man brought it,” said her mother, smiling, “and the day was so snowy and forlorn, I thought we’d have a little good cheer. It didn’t cost much. And besides, Miss York telephoned earlier in the day that she thought she might get off tonight and take dinner with us, but about five she called again and said the snow was so deep she guessed she wouldn’t venture.”

“She’d have had to walk,” mused Camilla, “and the snow is almost a foot deep. It’s a good thing we got moved before this blizzard came.”

“Yes, isn’t it? We have a great deal to be thankful for.”

Then after a minute of silence, while Camilla was gathering up the dishes and making quick work of clearing up the table, her mother said, “Camilla, where does this Mr. Whitlock live? In a hotel? Or has he family? He isn’t married, is he?”

“Why, no, I think not,” said Camilla, looking startled. “No, of course not!” she said. “He certainly wouldn’t be taking me out to dinner and to a concert, would he, if he was married?”

“Some men do such things,” said Mrs. Chrystie thoughtfully, “but I remember the people at home spoke well of him. And he seems a fine, quiet sort of man. He was very interesting, wasn’t he? I enjoyed his description of those cathedrals.”

“Yes, he can talk well. And now I remember hearing him say that he lives at his club. It’s one of the best ones downtown. I forget the name.”

“Well, he seemed like a lonely man to me,” said Mrs. Chrystie, “and once he spoke of his mother’s death as being quite recent after a lingering illness. He’s probably one of those men who have devoted themselves to an invalid mother, just as my girl is beginning to have to do for me.”

“Mother! Don’t talk that way!” said Camilla, with troubled eyes. “You’re not an invalid anymore, and I’d rather be devoted to you than to anyone in the world!”

“You’re a dear child!” said her mother, laughing. “But I’m glad you’ve got such a kind employer. He’s really much younger than you led me to suppose.”

“Young?” said Camilla, with a dreamy look. “Why, Mother, his hair is gray all around the edges!”

“You don’t like him much, do you, Camilla?”

“Why, of course I like him!” said Camilla. “Why shouldn’t I? I’m not in love with him, if that’s what you mean. I doubt if I shall ever love anyone that way. Mother, why will you persist in thinking every man that speaks to me wants to marry me?”

“Oh, child!” said her mother in a shocked tone. “I don’t! What a thing to say! But I do want to know all about anyone who shows you the least attention, of course, and I do want you to have some nice friends of your own kind.”

“Well, he isn’t my kind,” said Camilla quite crossly. “He’s much older than I am. Oh, he’s nice and interesting, all right. He doesn’t bore me, if that’s what you mean. He talks of books and art and music and is quite intellectual, but I don’t know that he’s of my world any more than anybody else I know.”

“He spoke of a church which he attends,” said her mother speculatively.

“Everyone that goes to church nowadays isn’t a Christian, by any means,” said Camilla as she turned out the kitchen light.

“No, of course that’s true,” agreed her mother.

Camilla got up early the next morning, wrapped herself in warm garments, and went out with the old snow shovel. It had stopped snowing, but the sky was still lowering. She attacked the front walk and the path to the house. Luckily they were short or she could not have managed them, for the snow was heavy and deeply packed. But she cleared the walks, made a shovel-wide path to the garage, and came in with glowing cheeks to breakfast.

“I’m glad it’s stopped snowing,” said her mother. “I shouldn’t have let you go to the office if it hadn’t.”

“Mr. Whitlock said I was not to come if it was still storming,” said Camilla. “He’s really very kind.”

“Yes, he is,” said her mother. “But I wish you’d telephone me when you get to town. I’d feel a great deal better about you.”

Camilla promised and went away happily.

Mr. Whitlock was in the office when she got there. He looked up from his desk to welcome her with somehow a freer, more intimate air about him than he had ever worn before. Marietta hadn’t come in yet.

He greeted her pleasantly and then added, “You have a very interesting mother, Miss Chrystie. I enjoyed my chat with her very much. I shall avail myself of your invitation and repeat my visit of last night often if I may.”

They were casual words, lightly spoken, but something warned Camilla that they had a deeper significance than was on the surface. It was as if he were preparing the way for an intimacy, and it came as something she was not sure she wanted. He was her employer, and it seemed fitting that she should keep him as such and not make a friend out of him. The memory of it hung around her all the morning unpleasantly, yet when she thought it over frankly, she couldn’t understand why she should feel that way. She couldn’t go around alone all her life and never go anywhere nor see nor hear anything, and if Mr. Whitlock was the key to a little recreation, she ought to be glad that he was willing to take her places and call often to see her, making the home life cheerful for Mother also.

When she searched her mind for a reason for her hesitance to take Mr. Whitlock into their home circle, she found that deep in her heart there was a reluctance to have anybody blot out the memory of Jeffrey Wainwright and the few beautiful days when he had come in among them. And when she realized this she became suddenly most cordial to Whitlock, who developed an interest in her home and relatives and asked questions about her father and where and how she was brought up. If Whitlock came often to the house and they grew close, perhaps in time she would get over this insane habit of returning to the thought of the young man who seemed to have obsessed her with his brilliant personality. Maybe she could get interested in Mr. Whitlock and forget Wainwright. Of course, Mr. Whitlock was good-looking, even if he did have a bit of silver in his hair. And he had nice, kind eyes when he was not thinking about business.

So Camilla answered him cordially, and presently there grew up a kind of intimacy between them, comfortably friendly, yet such as could easily be set aside when business hours came.

But before long the look in Whitlock’s eyes when he turned them toward Camilla had something more than just friendship in them, and Marietta was quick to see it and react.

“Gee!” she said one afternoon after he had gone out. “He’s got an awful crush on you, hasn’t he? Gee, ef he’d look at me with that ‘drink-ta-me-only’ look in his eyes, I’d fall in my tracks. I positively would!”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, Marietta, don’t talk that way!” said Camilla sharply. “What a silly idea! You see, he knows a lot of my father’s old friends, and he’s just being kind to me for their sakes.”

“Oh yeah?” said Marietta, with a grin. “I heard that old ‘friend-of-my-father’s’ line before. He’s got it bad! Me, I know the signs! I haven’t been watching other folks get courted all these years for nothing! You’re too innocent! That’s what gets me. You never use one bit a ‘come-hither’ at all—though you got plenty you could use ef you was a mindta—and they come rushing ta yer feet. Oh, I haven’t got any feeling about it, Camilla. I never expect ta have anybody taking me anyplace, but I liketa see you have it. I do honest. I just love you, and I wanta have you have anything you want.”

“You dear thing!” said Camilla, trying to put away the annoyance she felt. “You’ll have attention yet, sometime. But don’t get notions about me, please. And by the way, Mother’s making some more gingerbread men for Ted tomorrow. You might tell him, if you like.”

“Say, that’s great!” said Marietta, flushing eagerly. “Ted will be awfully pleased. And say, I meant ta tell you yesterday, only Mr. Whitlock was here all day, how I been reading the Testament you gave ta Ted, and he loves it. And my stepmother listens, too, sometimes. You know, she’s back from the hospital now and can’t do much all day but just lie still. She’s a lot different since she was so sick. I guess she was scared, and sometimes she’s real kind to Ted, talks kind of motherlike to him. Gee, that gets me. I don’t care what she does to me, just so she’s good to him. And he seems so pleased, poor kid!”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” said Camilla. “You know, Marietta, it may be the Lord has put you right in that hard place to lead both your stepmother and little brother to know Jesus.”

“I was wondering about that,” said Marietta. “Do you suppose He’d trust me ta do a thing like that? Ef I thought I could, gee, that would make up for me being so plain and homely. I’d like ta try.”

“I certainly think you may be just put there for that very thing,” said Camilla eagerly. “And don’t you know, Marietta, one can grow beautiful by being with the Lord Jesus every day and trying to please Him? If you let Him live in you, there is a beauty of soul that will shine through—the beauty of the Lord Jesus living in you and moving you to every thought and action. You can live Jesus; even when you have no words you can speak so that people will listen. They can’t help listening to your life.”

So the days went by, and Marietta grew in the finer things of the Spirit and in the knowledge of God’s Word. And Camilla worked hard, praying to God to conquer for her the longings and desires that were not of Him.

And Whitlock more and more fell into the habit of asking Camilla to go to lunch with him or driving out to her home with her for dinner and an evening talk, and as spring drew nearer he began to talk of places he wanted her to see when the warm weather came.

Mother Chrystie, looking on, puckered her anxious brows and sighed sometimes, and wondered if this was God’s best for her beloved Camilla. Wondered if Camilla understood how great a thing it was to choose the right mate for life and how wrong it was to be hasty about it. Wondered if Ralph Whitlock was not perhaps in his way as worldly as the dear bright youth who came no more to see them, nor even wrote to inquire. She sighed and wondered if she ought to warn her child yet held her peace a little longer lest she precipitate something she feared and dreaded.

And Camilla went on, sometimes breathlessly, trying not to think. Trying to take the good times that were handed to her and not question the morrow. Looking at her employer more and more in the light of a friend.

And Whitlock came to assume more and more the attitude of one who expected sometime to be even more than a friend. He assumed a kind of friendly dictatorship over Camilla, bringing her books to read, ordering her what newspaper to take, and instructing her in all things pertaining to life, almost as if he had already the right to say how she should live and move and have her being.

And yet, there was a certain point beyond which Camilla would not let him go. She would not let him grow sentimental or very personal, and she would never let him touch her, always withdrawing her hand if he took it in too close a clasp, always keeping him just a little at his distance. She did not herself know just why. She was not ready yet to ask herself questions about it. And strange to say, this attitude on her part only seemed to make him admire her more. It suited his conventional, somewhat formal character to have her so.

Camilla had attempted to probe her admirer concerning the things of life that meant most to her. She had asked him point-blank one day if he was a Christian, not realizing that her question had been half answered before she asked, by the very fact that she had to ask him, and he answered her quite readily: