The Flower Brides (83 page)

Marietta looked frightened when she came in and hid the paper package she was carrying under her arm. But Mr. Whitlock did not even look up or notice her entrance. He was very intent on his own affairs. Marietta hung up her things and hurriedly went to work.

Mr. Whitlock stayed at his desk until the mail came and then, with a set grim look on his face, went out. Marietta worked more steadily than usual, and Camilla saw no book around. She did a fair amount of work and seemed anxious to let Camilla know how much she had accomplished, though she did not interrupt her as much as usual.

At noon Camilla produced the book and a few simple puzzles she had found in the attic and asked Marietta if she thought Ted would like them, and Marietta was overjoyed. She also told her about the cookies her mother was making for him, and actual tears came to the homely girl’s eyes.

“Say, now, isn’t that wonderful!” she exclaimed. “My, how lucky you are to have a mother like that! My, ef I had a mother, I’d do just everything she said! Say, I guess that’s one thing that makes you different from the other girls, isn’t it, having a mother like that? My! I’d like ta see her sometime! But she wouldn’t approve of me! Me, I’m a devil! That’s what my stepmother calls me!”

Camilla wanted to say something kind and comforting to the girl who seemed so forlorn and lonely, but just then they heard Mr. Whitlock’s quick, impatient steps coming down the hall. Marietta scuttled into the cloakroom with the things Camilla had given her, hid them, and was back working away at her machine with unusual diligence when he finally reached the door and entered.

F
or the rest of that week matters at the office were exceedingly strained. Mr. Whitlock came and went, scarcely looking at either of his secretaries, saying nothing except what was absolutely necessary, smiling not at all, and each day found Camilla’s hopes going down lower than the day before. It seemed to her as if she should scream if this kept up much longer.

Then one morning the letter from Cleveland came and things relaxed a little. There was obvious relief in Mr. Whitlock’s face as he read it, and his tone was more like his old self, gracious, courteous, reserved, as he dictated the answer. Camilla thought she understood partly what had been troubling him, and she drew a free breath and took heart of hope.

Marietta, child of emotion, on the other hand, unbound from the lease of fear once more, lapsed into her novel on the slightest pretext. Not the same novel by this time, of course, but another of like thrilling interest, and at once her rate of production dropped again. Marietta bounded up from her temporary grinding industry as a bird let loose and tried to be chummy and friendly with her dignified employer, just to reassure herself that the strain was all over.

But Camilla could not so soon forget her anxiety, and she redoubled her efforts to be letter-perfect in every way in her work.

Yet as things grew brighter again at the office and her fears began to drop away, her thoughts went back to dreaming again, and she could not keep Wainwright out of her mind. Would she never get this thing conquered, or was it just that she had been under so much strain that her thoughts sought naturally the only little incident in her monotonous life that had given a bit of a thrill?

Then she would recall bit by bit the incident of Stephanie Varrell’s visit and her hateful insinuations until her pride would rise and put the whole matter out of mind.

Sometimes it seemed to her that she just must tell her mother everything. There was no one but her mother who could help to take the sting out of the whole affair and make her see things sanely and be able to laugh at it all, rather than to brood over it.

But still she could not bring herself to put it upon her mother, for in spite of all she would say, and the way she would smile over it and say it was not worth worrying over, she knew it would be a mortification to her mother that the girl had dared to come to her that way.

And also, Camilla hesitated just because she didn’t want her mother to lose her beautiful faith in Wainwright. She wanted her to go on admiring him, as she could not admire him perhaps if she knew of his friendship with such a girl as Miss Varrell—if she knew of the kiss that he had given her own daughter!

So Camilla closed her lips on the whole affair and did her best to close her heart and her mind to it also.

She was just congratulating herself that she had put it all behind her and had not thought of it for one whole day when Marietta Pratt came to her one morning with a page from the society news of the night before.

“Say,” she said with a grin, “whatcha putting over on us? Have you got a double, or do ya take a plane an’ fly down ta Palm Beach weekends, ur what? Mebbe it’s only weekends, but here ya are as plain as day.”

She spread the page across Camilla’s desk, and there, occupying the larger portion of the upper half of the sheet, was a full-length picture of the golden-haired beauty who had visited her in that office only a short week before! And by her side, tall, easy, grinning in his own adorable way, stood Jeffrey Wainwright! They were attired in bathing suits, the lady’s white and most abbreviated. Camilla did not need to read the names below, for the eyes of Jeffrey Wainwright looked into hers with his own friendly confidence and gave her heart a terrible thrust. She knew the girl also, immediately, in spite of the fact that the expression on her face was far from being the same one she had worn the last time she saw her.

The caption below, though Camilla tried not to read it, went deep into her consciousness and undid all the careful control of a week: “Two who are often seen together on the beach” it said. “millionaire’s son and noted beauty. Jeffrey Judson Wainwright, son of Robert Wainwright of the famous Wainwright Consolidated Corporation, seen on the beach in America’s greatest winter playground with Stephanie Varrell, former stage star and divorced wife of Harold Varrell of California. Rumor has it that the two are engaged, though there is a famous foreign actor who seems to be second in the running, if one may judge by appearance.”

Camilla turned sharply away after getting the first line, but Marietta read it aloud, rolling each syllable like a sweet morsel under her tongue and kept on reading it after Mr. Whitlock entered.

“Look, Mr. Whitlock,” she called out familiarly, holding up the picture, nothing daunted by his entrance, “isn’t that fer all the world like Camilla Chrystie? I’d swear it was her if I didn’t know she’d been here all week.”

Mr. Whitlock, with his habitual gravity, looked down at the picture and then cast a quick look at Camilla, seeming to take in her delicacy and loveliness for the first time.

“Why yes, it does resemble Miss Chrystie,” he said, and Camilla saw him glace over the paragraph below the picture. But she took good care to be hard at work when he glanced up at her again. She was glad that he made no further comment.

The day went forward busily like other days and no more was said about the picture, but Camilla was strangely shaken. Somehow she could not put the thought of it away. Here was all her work to be done over again. It seemed she hadn’t forgotten the charming stranger at all nor the girl who carried venom under her tongue. She had to be seeing them all day running around in bathing suits together. She had to see that nice straight grin on his fine features and the possessive, cocky smile in the other girl’s eyes as she looked up at him in the picture. How it all made her anger rise, and she felt more than ever her own helplessness. How she began to wish she had never seen either of them! How she loathed herself!

She stayed late in the office that afternoon after the others had gone. Somehow her work had lagged and she had not accomplished all that she knew she ought. It was better now that her employer and Marietta were gone.

She was still working away at her typewriter when Mr. Whitlock returned and unlocked his desk to find some papers he needed. When he had locked it again he lingered and hesitated, looking toward her.

“You needn’t finish those letters tonight,” he said graciously. “There is no great haste. If they get off by eleven tomorrow, they will be in plenty of time.”

Camilla looked up, surprised at his kindliness. He was a man of few words.

“Thank you,” she said with a weary little smile. “I’m on the last one. And tomorrow’s work will be coming on. I’d rather finish each day in itself whenever possible.”

“You’re very faithful,” he said gravely. “Suppose when you are done we go out and get some dinner together.”

Camilla looked up, surprised.

“Thank you,” she said gratefully, “but I couldn’t. My mother hasn’t been very well, you know, and I don’t leave her alone evenings yet if I can help it.”

“I see,” said the man pleasantly, noticing the delicacy of her features and the golden sheen of her hair where the light over her desk fell full upon it. “You shouldn’t, of course. Some other time perhaps.”

He said no more, and Camilla went on with her work.

When she had finished her last letter she closed her desk for the night, put on her coat, and paused just an instant beside her employer’s desk to say a deferential good night.

He looked up and said good night, and suddenly his face broke into a smile. It occurred to her that she had never before seen him smile, except gravely when there were strangers in the office. It made his face most attractive. The smile lit up his eyes. He had nice eyes. Who was it they made her think of? Someone she liked?

She was puzzling over it as she went out and down the hall and while she stood waiting for the elevator. Nice eyes! And his voice had been kind and friendly! The echo of his good night seemed to follow her and be even yet ringing quietly in the marble hall. And here she had been worrying for a whole week lest she might be going to lose her job! It comforted her that he had gone out of his way to be nice to her, asking her to go out to dinner with him. It made her position more assured in these uncertain times. And, of course, he was a friend of the Barrons in her hometown. It was only decent that he should show her a little friendliness after the letter of introduction Mr. Barron had written for her. Well, he had nice eyes, whoever it was that he looked like when he smiled!

Then suddenly she knew. Jeffrey Wainwright! Was she always to be thinking of him every minute? How ridiculous! Mr. Whitlock didn’t resemble him in the least, of course, and something in her inmost soul resented the idea that she had thought so for a minute. Well, she must be going crazy to have such an obsession about Wainwright. She must snap out of it at once. It was a good thing that he had gone away when he had. A good thing that she was busy and could put him out of her mind!

Then she reverted pleasantly to Mr. Whitlock’s invitation and his kindly smile. Well, here at least was something nice she could tell her mother. Mother would appreciate a thing like that, and she would never have an idea how fearful she had been all the week lest she might lose her job.

But when she reached home that night she found her mother in quite a flutter over a crate of luscious oranges and grapefruit that had arrived that afternoon with Jeffrey Wainwright’s card enclosed, and Camilla was so filled with mingled delight and dismay that she forgot all about Whitlock’s invitation. For a few minutes her heart got beyond all bounds and exulted. He hadn’t forgotten them after all!

She went about putting away her coat and then came and looked at the wonderful golden spheres, so much more beautiful than any they could buy in the north, and her eyes shone and her cheeks glowed with more than the glow of the crisp air of the evening through which she had been driving.

“And he sent them to
me
,” said her mother, shyly smiling. “Wasn’t it lovely of him? Did you notice the marking? Though, of course, they were really meant for you.”

“Not a bit of it!” said Camilla, with her chin up in a moment. “There was no reason whatever for him to send anything to me. It was just beautiful of him to send them to you. And I certainly am glad he had such good sense. You know, you are really the one he admires. He sent his first orchids to you. But how did you get the crate open?”

She watched her mother’s eager face as she answered and was glad, glad, even though this was going to upset again all her fine self-discipline of the past week.

“Why, I made the deliveryman open it for me and gave him ten cents extra. And, Camilla, there were some real live orange blossoms wrapped in the wet gray moss stuck down among them. Go look at them. I put some of them on the table. Aren’t they wonderful! Smell them. I remember that fragrance. Your father took me down to Florida once when we were first married, and we boarded for a whole week across the road from an orange grove. It’s such a spicy odor. There is nothing else like it. I can remember how I felt about it. I used to lie in the hammock on the porch and listen to the mockingbirds singing and the whispering winds in those tall pines, and smell those orange blossoms, and think that heaven must be almost like that. It didn’t seem as if there could be anything better in this world, anyway.”

Camilla, to hide the tears that insisted upon stinging into her eyes, bent her tired young head and kissed her mother.

“You’re a dear poet!” she said breathlessly. “Yes, the fragrance is wonderful indeed. Some day when I get rich I’ll take you down there again, and we’ll spend a whole winter smelling them. Now, I must wash my hands and face. They are just filthy!” And she slipped away to the bathroom to stop those tired tears and get some color into her face before her mother should have leisure to inspect her.

“He meant them for you, of course,” said her mother as they sat down to the table where the nice little supper was set out so invitingly.

“Oh, no!” said Camilla quickly. “Mother, you must get that idea completely out of your head. Please, Mother, that young man has no more idea of doing anything for me than the president of these United States has. You don’t realize who he is. I’ve been seeing his name in the papers. Mother, he’s the son of the head of that great Wainwright Corporation that we hear so much about. He’s rich as Croesus and is only tossing some golden guilders to a little beggar girl whom he picked up by the way when she was in trouble. It was nice of him to remember you. He must be unusual to remember even a dear sick lady like my precious mother, even a lady who resembles a very costly cameo. Mother, don’t get notions in your head. He’s just being
nice
, and I’ll say that was
very
nice. And nicer still that he sent them to you instead of to me, for now I won’t be put to the trouble of writing him a letter of thanks.
You
’
ll
have to do it, and I’m
glad
!”