The Flower Brides (101 page)

Camilla laughed softly, with something moist and tender in her eyes. Sometime, perhaps, she would tell Jeff everything, but it didn’t seem to matter just now, only her heart took time to be a little glad that Whitlock was going back to find his wife.

Marietta sat working away intent upon her business when they entered the office, but when she looked up and saw Camilla with those gorgeous orchids pinned to her coat and her face shining, she sat and stared, oblivious for the moment of the tall young man who loomed behind her. And when Camilla introduced him and he bowed and smiled at her, she was entirely overcome, utterly speechless.

Jeff didn’t stay but a minute. He said he had an errand and would be back at five o’clock, would come up to the office and get her. “We’ll drive home in your car, shall we, Camilla? And I’ll have mine sent up later. I want to see what kind of a job they made of the car.”

And right there before the wondering eyes of Marietta, he had the boldness to stoop and kiss Camilla on her happy lips and say, “Good-bye, Camilla, till five o’clock!”

Marietta remained speechless until the door had closed after him and Camilla had turned toward her, smiling. Then she said, “Oh, Camilla! Isn’t he
swell
? Does he really
belong to you
?”

It was hard for both girls to do any work that afternoon. Marietta was fairly bursting with questions, and Camilla could not keep her thoughts from wandering back to her joy. But five o’clock came at last, and Jeff was exactly on time.

They filled Marietta with everlasting gratitude and joy by tucking her into the car and taking her home before they went on their way, but at last they were out and alone and could talk. Camilla at once became dumb. She couldn’t say what was in her heart. She could only smile and look at Jeff’s dear face.

But Jeff wasn’t dumb. “Camilla, I’ve been thinking a lot while you were up there in that office. How soon can we be married? I simply can’t wait a long time! We’ve wasted a lot of weeks already. And I’ve been making plans. I have a gorgeous piece of land out on the Ridge, and I thought perhaps we’d like to build and have our house just the way we plan it? How about it? Would you like that?”

But Camilla could only gasp and smile and exclaim.

“We’d want it specially arranged so that your mother could have a little suite of rooms—sitting room and dressing room and bath and so on, you know—right on the ground floor. I wasn’t sure but we’d have the whole thing built long and low so we could all be together. I know it isn’t good for your mother to do much climbing of stairs.”

Camilla glowed. It didn’t seem that any of this was real, only a dream, and therefore no answers were required of her.

“And then I was wondering if we couldn’t get hold of that nurse you had. Wasn’t her name York? And just get her to live with us and kind of look after us all and be someone to stay with Mother when we had to be away a few days. I thought if we arranged the rooms right it might be very pleasant, and she would take a lot of responsibility off you if any of us were sick. She seemed such a nice sort of person. Would you like that?”

On and on he went with his wild, lovely plans, and they were at the house before they realized.

Jeff insisted on going in the back door straight from the garage with Camilla.

“I want to begin to be at home right away,” he said, grinning.

And then in he walked and took Mrs. Chrystie right in his arms and kissed her gently on both cheeks.

“Here I am again, Mother Chrystie,” he said with his nice grin. “And you might as well make up your mind to like me, for I’ve come to stay. I’m going to be your son just as soon as I can pry Camilla loose from that job of hers and we can get married. I hope you don’t mind, for I love you a lot already!”

“And where do I come in?” said a voice from the dining room door, and there was Nurse York just come in for a few minutes to see how they were getting along.

“Why, you come right in on the ground floor, of course,” said Jeff heartily. “Camilla and I were just talking about it. We were wondering whether you would be willing to give up what you’re doing and be our official nurse? We’re building you a special room just as you want it, if you will, and we won’t take no for an answer!”

After dinner was over and Nurse York had gone back to her patient, they sat together talking it over joyously.

“But, Mother,” said Camilla, “I don’t see how we’re ever going to have the right kind of wedding in this tiny house with our resources. Marietta has been telling me all the afternoon what swell relatives I’m acquiring, interspersed with clippings to prove it from the newspapers, and I’m afraid they’ll feel uncomfortable here. They couldn’t all get in, either. And we haven’t a church around here that we know well enough to feel like getting married in. I wish people could just go quietly to a minister and get married. Very poor people do that. Why can’t we?”

Her troubled eyes turned toward Jeff, who met hers with a perplexed but not at all worried look.

But it was the mother who solved the problem.

“Oh, that will be easy, dear,” she said sweetly. “We’ll just go back home to Burbrook, and you can be married in the church where your father and I were married. The same minister is there yet. He was a young man then; he’s old and retired now, but he could marry you. Then you can have a little reception right there in the church afterward; that’s often done. And you know there’s a new hotel there now, a lovely place, they say. That would make plenty of room for the guests who stayed overnight. It’s not so far away, only a hundred and fifty miles. Wouldn’t that be all right?”

“That would be great!” said Jeff. “And now, Mother Chrystie, how soon do you think it could reasonably be? Camilla has so much devotion to that office that I can’t quite trust her decision, for I’m in a hurry; I’m telling my father and mother tonight, and I’d like to announce the date. Also, I want to bring them to call tomorrow.”

The wedding was fixed for June and very simply planned.

Camilla went around in a daze of joy and couldn’t believe it was anything but a dream until the wedding presents began to come in, and then she was almost in a panic. How could she ever live up to those wedding presents? They more than filled the little house and were more wonderful than any dream she had ever dreamed.

She said something to Jeff one day, and he put his arm around her and drew her close.

“You don’t have to live up to them, sweetheart. They are only things of this world,” he said, “and you and I have been born again into another world, thank God!”

But there was one wedding present that filled Camilla’s heart with thanksgiving, not because of its intrinsic value, though it was beautiful and rare and costly enough, but because of the card that accompanied it, though it was only a plain engraved card. It read, “Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Whitlock,” and down in the corner in a woman’s fine hand was written, “In Gratitude.”

The wedding was charming and the bride very lovely in her mother’s wedding dress of fine embroidered organdy with bits of real, old lace. John Saxon was there, of course, and Marietta, too, the trip and a new dress being a gift from the bride.

All Jeffrey Wainwright’s rich relatives were present and called the old church “quaint” and “darling” and said the bride was “rare,” and wasn’t it nice that she was willing to wear Jeff’s grandmother’s wedding veil?

It hung around her like frost work of old silver, and Jeffrey said it made her look like an angel. She wore real orange blossoms that John Saxon had brought. But the bridal bouquet was of white orchids!

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL
(1865–1947) is known as the pioneer of Christian romance. Grace wrote over one hundred faith-inspired books during her lifetime. When her first husband died, leaving her with two daughters to raise, writing became a way to make a living, but she always recognized storytelling as a way to share her faith in God. She has touched countless lives through the years and continues to touch lives today. Her books feature moving stories, delightful characters, and love in its purest form.

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