The Flower Brides (96 page)

“Oh, certainly! I joined the church when I was not more than fourteen, and I’ve been fairly faithful in attendance ever since. Of course, many things that I believed in those days have been greatly modified as I grew older and wiser, but I have always maintained that man needs religion and that the church is a valuable influence in the world and should therefore be supported by all thinking people. I have not been quite as active in the church organizations the last few years as I was when I was a lad, but, of course, a businessman has less time than a youth, and in spite of that, I have gone out of my way to accept positions on boards and so on. Just now it happens that in addition to being a trustee in the church where I hold membership, I am taking time on a special committee to work out a plan whereby our church shall be able to pay off its entire mortgage and make out a full budget for the coming year.”

With this vague explanation Camilla had to be satisfied. She wished she dared ask him what he meant by not believing all that he had as a child, but there was something about him that prevented questioning of his ways. He did not suffer criticism nor suggestion, and somehow every question that Camilla tried to formulate seemed almost like a criticism of his Christian methods. So time went on, and she was still vague about his definite beliefs. Still, of course, he owned he was a Christian, and he often asked the blessing at the table when her mother asked him to. It sounded a bit cold and formal, perhaps, but still it was phrased in language that was familiar and had the right ring. She could not possibly feel that he was out of her class when he owned to being a Christian.

But sometimes Camilla wondered, and a great oppression came upon her young soul. She hadn’t known him long, yet he was taking things for granted so rapidly that sometimes she was breathless and troubled.

And one night after he had gone—after having spent the evening describing at length a trip he had taken only two years before, in which he saw Paris on its most sophisticated side, an evening in which Camilla had sat almost silent in the shadow of a big lampshade, listening, looking almost troubled—her mother looked at her keenly.

“Are you going to marry that man, Camilla?” she asked suddenly.

“Oh,
Mother
! What a question! Why! Why—I don’t even know that he would want me to marry him! Why, I’m not thinking about marrying people, Mother!”

And suddenly Camilla burst into tears and buried her face in her mother’s neck.

Loving arms went around her and loving lips were laid against her hot, wet cheek.

“There, there, dear!” soothed her mother gently. “I just thought I ought to remind you that it is a woman’s business to be aware of such things and not let a man go too far if she does not intend to go all the way to the altar with him! It looked to me as if he was expecting a lot of you, my dear, and I wondered if you were ready to choose him for life, if you were really satisfied with him. He is a good man, I guess, but—I wondered if you were
sure
, sure beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he is the one you want. You know, a woman should be
sure
! That’s the only thing that makes marriage happy; it’s the only thing that makes it tolerable!”

And Camilla clung to her mother, trembling, quivering in every nerve, shot through with questionings and doubts, and trying not to remember a kiss that had gone deep into her soul. She thought that if it only hadn’t been for that kiss, she might have been able to think more clearly.

T
he plaything that Stephanie Varrell had found on the beach that afternoon had proved to be more than usually interesting, and before Jeffrey Wainwright’s return to civilization she had used her jacinth eyes to such an extent that she was wearing a strange golden stone on her finger with a curious fire in its heart, set in workmanship of the far orient, and there was much gossip abroad, for Stephanie and her “Count” were seen constantly together.

Yet it had not been a part of her plan to have Jeff come upon them just where and how he did.

She had been accustomed to use certain tactics with Jeffrey that she found always worked. Invariably, she had been able to bring him back to her feet whenever she wished, and she had never let him drift quite so far away before.

But something had happened the night of that dinner of hers that she did not understand, and she was playing high stakes now to undo what she had dared to do in inviting Myles Meredith. There was nothing like rousing jealousy in a man’s heart to bring him to terms, Stephanie firmly believed, never having read aright the fine soul of Jeff. She had never sensed that, instead of being merely jealous for himself, he was jealous for her reputation and his ideal of her, which he had made himself and cherished for genuine.

But Jeff came home just after the sun had dropped the velvet curtain of night down upon golden Florida and driven the guests of the hotel to their rooms to dress for dinner and the evening.

Then Jeff came down late to dinner, escaping a good many people whom he wasn’t in a hurry to meet. He took a walk on the veranda after dinner with his mother. He sat for a while with her in the softness and darkness of the evening, talking, telling her some things about his brother Sam he thought she ought to know, how the boy was developing character and an interest in certain studies that should be fostered. He kept feeling around and wondering how he should tell her of his new experience. Was it the right time? Would she understand? In all his life he had had very little real heart conversation with his mother. She had a cold, reticent nature, taking certain things for granted, ignoring certain other things. He had a feeling that perhaps she would not approve, might perhaps think he was becoming fanatical. He greatly desired, when he did tell her, to do it so that she would be impressed with the deep reality of his new experience.

“Mother,” he said at last after a long silence broken only by the regular sound of the sea breaking on the sand not far away, “I’ve been thinking things out while I was away in the woods, and I’ve made some decisions.”

His mother stopped rocking in the big willow chair, with a short, sharp little sound of quietness as if she had feared something and thought it might be coming now. She wondered if it was that yellow-haired girl with the strange, sly eyes? Or was he wanting to go and kill lions in Africa? Some new sensation, of course!

“The most important decision,” he went on, “is that I’ve become a Christian!”

He had thought it all out and had decided that this was the best way to express it to his mother. She wouldn’t at all understand if he should say he had been born again. She might even resent it, as if his birth had not been good enough for him. She had a strange, deep pride of family. The word
Christian
he felt sure she would understand to a certain extent, and it was still, of course, perfectly respectable. As the world, her world, counted respectability.

His mother was still, holding the rocker motionless for a full second while she thought it over. Then she answered calmly. “That’s all right with me, Jeff, just so you don’t make too much of it. I’d hate to have a child with a religious complex. Of course, a little religion doesn’t hurt anybody if it’s kept within bounds.”

Jeff sat silent for a long time after that, realizing just how little his mother would be in sympathy with his new life, yet feeling that he had no further word for her at present.

Presently Mrs. Wainwright drew her soft wrap around her shoulders with a little shiver and rose. Suddenly leaning over her son, she patted his dark head with an unaccustomed caress and said, “You always were a good boy, Jeff!”

Then after an instant, “Come, I’m going in. There’s too much breeze out here for me.”

He escorted her into the hotel where she settled down among a group of her kind, and with a graceful good night he left her and sauntered out to the patio again, stalking down the full length and across the sea end.

The ballroom was that way, down along the north side of the building, and dancing was going on inside, but a glance showed the patio entirely empty just then, a long stretch of darkness broken by the rectangles of light from the open windows and lit not at all except by one single lamp at the far end. Jeff strolled on, keeping out near the railing. He did not want company just then. He had some serious thinking to do. He would just walk by and glance in the windows and see who of the old crowd was there. He was suddenly beginning to realize that life was going to have some very decided changes for him in the near future. His old world was not going to recognize what had happened to him. They were not going to understand. They were not his world anymore. He had been born into a new world.

He walked slowly, quietly, the sound of the beating waves and the throb of the orchestra covering his deliberate footfalls.

Pausing an instant to glance through a window, he was startled to hear a light, familiar laugh coming from out of the shadows quite near him, and turning sharply, he saw one of the glider seats with which the place abounded, drawn slantwise into the shadow so that the occupants could get a full view of the ballroom without themselves being very visible to those inside the windows, and there they sat quite oblivious to any but themselves. They had evidently not heard his approach, for they were absorbed in each other. He could see the gold of the girl’s hair, crowned with a sparkling jeweled tiara, the lifted face with the offered lips, and the gleam of her white arm as she threw it around the neck of her companion, a tall man who bent a comely head above her and embraced her passionately. Stephanie! And he had just been thinking about her!

He had just been considering that in some sort he was entangled with her, or he had at one time asked her to marry him. True, she had not answered him, had put him off time after time, laughingly. But she was capable of making trouble about it if she chose. He had been perplexing himself over it, wondering what was his duty now. For he understood himself well enough to know that she was not for him. He had been hoping that she might have gone back north, but now here she was, not three feet from him, and lying in another man’s arms! If Jeffrey Wainwright had any of his former illusions left about Stephanie Varrell, they were dispelled at once. Her whole attitude, her soft, honeyed, purring tones, the caresses she was showering upon the man, made it quite plain that Stephanie was not in love with Jeffrey. And suddenly his heart leaped with a thankful throb. Here at last was absolute evidence. He had feared that perhaps, after all, he had misjudged her and that her association with other men against his protest was really as innocent as she had always declared. He did not wish to be unjust. But here was the evidence of his own eyes.

Well, what should he do now? Get away without their seeing him, of course, if it could be done. But could it? The music had stopped for the moment.

He made a quick stealthy movement with one foot, to back away, keeping his eyes upon the two on the couch. But he did not realize that someone had piled a couple of chairs in a rocker just behind where he was standing. His foot came in sharp contact with the point of the rocker, and the rocker being set in motion, the two smaller chairs came crashing down to the floor noisily.

It was all over in an instant. The two people in the porch seat sat up sharply, staring at him, and Jeff came out of the darkness and up to them at once with a grave bow.

“Sorry to intrude,” he said with easy courtesy. “I did not know that anyone was here. Don’t let me interrupt!” And with a significant glance at Stephanie, he turned and walked deliberately away. As he went he carried the memory of Stephanie’s eyes, jacinth eyes, gleaming in the dark like cat’s eyes.

He had almost rounded the sea end of the patio when he heard a scurrying sound behind him of feet running, and the two were upon him, Stephanie’s light, heartless laugh ringing out.

“Jeff! Oh, Jeff! Wait!” she called, and reaching his side, she slid her arm within his own, as she had so often done before, with that soft little confiding air that had at one time meant so much to him.

“I want to tell you the news and introduce you to my fiancé,” she said eagerly. “This is Count Esterhoff, Jeff, and we were just engaged tonight! He knows all about you, of course. And I want you to see my wonderful, curious ring! There isn’t another like it in all the world!”

Jeff paused politely in the light of the next window to acknowledge the introduction and to survey the weird ring, whose setting of strange serpents curiously intertwined with uncanny symbols smacked of aged, pagan worlds. The newly made fiancé, who hadn’t known his fate until that moment, stood there blinking and staring at the girl who had just so unexpectedly become engaged to him.

“Congratulations!” said Jeff, with a delighted grin. “That’s splendid news. Delighted to meet you, Count. And say, that’s some ring! An heirloom, I take it. A most unusual setting, isn’t it?”

He lingered a minute or two chatting, adding a few more polite phrases, and then excused himself from the scene lest his overwhelming relief became too painfully obvious. He hurried away and disappeared by a roundabout route to his room.

He had been calmly sleeping for what seemed to him many hours when his telephone roused him, and Stephanie’s voice, amazingly meek and tearful, called him from his pleasant dreams.

“Jeff, is that you? This is Stephanie, Jeff, and I’m
so
unhappy—!”

There was a silence during which Jeff got awake enough to visualize once more the scene he had witnessed on the north patio a few hours before.

“Isn’t that too bad!” he said at last, a note of mocking in his voice.

“Now, Jeff, if you knew how unhappy I am you wouldn’t try to be unkind,” reproached the markedly humble voice at the other end of the wire.

Jeff was still, trying to think hard. Then he spoke in his clear, firm voice, with finality in its very fiber.

“I’m not trying to be unkind, Stephanie. I’m just puzzled to know what I have to do with all this. It can’t be many hours since you told me you were engaged to another man, and I should think this matter of your unhappiness would be referred to him.”