The Flower Brides (24 page)

She barely suppressed a shudder at that and, putting her head down on her hand, closed her eyes.

Oh, God!
she prayed.
I’m trusting You to see me through this somehow. Keep me quiet, and control this situation. You are stronger than the devil. You are stronger than a drunken man. Help!

It seemed a miracle that they were still on the road. The car tore on amid traffic and barely escaped again and again. She began to hope and pray for a traffic cop, but none seemed to be around. Once there were two on motorcycles, but there was an accident ahead, and when Laurie dashed by they were engaged in trying to control the cars involved and did not seem to notice them until they were well past. Once Marigold heard a shrill whistle ring out far behind them and hoped they had been sighted and followed, but Laurie pressed on, almost overturning the car once as he rounded a corner at high speed. Often he sent them up in the air and bumping down again with terrific force. But Laurie only rushed on.

It was growing dark now and beginning to snow, and Marigold’s heart grew heavier. She sat silent in her corner, and almost she hoped that Laurie had forgotten she was there. If she only could contrive some way to make him stop at a service station she would try to make her escape! Just run around behind some building and disappear. Would that be possible? But she dared not ask Laurie to stop. Perhaps the car would run out of gas or something pretty soon. Perhaps there would be help somewhere.

But suddenly Laurie burst out again. “We musht be almost there! Down in Mar’land shomewhere—! You’ve heard of the plashe! Get married shlick and quick. Everybody doesh it. Don’t cosht mush, either. Guess we c’n get by on eight bucks. If we get shtuck, I’ll call up the old lady and tell her I’m bushted!”

Marigold tried to control the shudder that passed over her involuntarily, envisioning such a life as he was planning for her.
God! Oh, God! I’m Yours! I can’t do anything for myself! You sent a strong one to help me down from the high place. Please come Yourself now and help me!

It was snowing hard now, a blinding snow. The windshield-wiper was tripping back and forth on the glass, but the snow in great flakes clogged its movements and placed large, soft curtains of snow quickly and neatly over the spot they had cleared. The visibility was poor. Marigold closed her eyes. She had no longer strength left to watch the near escapes, the oncoming lights of cars that seemed about to crash into them.

And now they were coming into a town. Marigold knew it even without opening her eyes because the light through her eyelids was more continuous. Laurie was still going at a breakneck speed. It was a wonder that he did not get arrested.

Suddenly she felt the speed slowing, and then the brakes were jammed on with a shudder and the car screamed to a slower pace.

“Thish musht be the plashe,” she heard Laurie say. “Nish little town. Marriage lishenshes on every street. Shee there!”

Marigold opened her eyes enough to see a sign lit with a row of electric bulbs above it, under a small sheltering roof. She could read the lettering through the fringes of her lashes.

it read, and a great fear took possession of her, more dreadful than anything she had experienced before. Was there going to be no way of escape? Would it be possible for an unprincipled man to go through with a ceremony and make it legal?
Oh, God!
What should she do?

“Nish place,” said Laurie thickly. “Like to live here myself. Look, baby!
Minishter!
How ’bout that? You’re so religious, I shupooshe you’ll be tickled pink about that!”

Marigold continued to keep her eyes closed as if she were asleep. It seemed her only defense. If he thought she was asleep, perhaps he would let her alone a minute. Perhaps he would get out and go into the house without her. If she could only drive a car she could get away from him. The car was idling by the curb now, and Laurie was still for the moment. Would it be possible that he might fall asleep and give her a chance to slip out the door and away?

There was not any possibility that she had not conceived of during that awful ride.

But no, he was not asleep. He was reaching down into the pocket on the door of the car and getting that awful flask. Twice before he had taken a swallow, the car lurching crazily as he did it. She dared not turn her head and look, but a second later she smelled the strong odor of the liquor again. And now that the car was standing still, he was drinking deeply.

Then suddenly he held out the bottle toward her.

“Take a drink,” he said foolishly. “Got plenty left for you. Shusht a drop, baby! Do you good! Take away your shicknesh! Better take a brasher. Then we’ll go in and get tied.”

But she steadily kept her head turned toward the corner of the car, and presently he desisted.

“Shtubborn! Thash what you are! Have a heckuva time breaking your will, but ish gotta be done! Awright, baby, you shtay here a minute, and I’ll go tip off the parshun!”

Slowly and laboriously, Laurie opened the car door and got himself onto the sidewalk, slipping and sliding drunkenly in the snow as he made his way across the pavement and in at a little white gate.

Oh, God! Oh, Jesus Christ! Send me help. Send a strong One
.

Marigold’s heart seemed to be praying of itself, while her mind suddenly came alert.

She sat without stirring while Laurie half skated up the little path to the white house, stumbled up the two steps to the veranda, and reached out an uncertain hand to a doorbell, adding a knock on the door itself, just to make sure.

Now! Now was the time!

She cast a quick glance around to get her bearings and reached a cold, trembling hand out to the door handle. Was there a place to hide? There were lights ahead, cars coming—trucks, perhaps—she must get across before they came. It was her only chance. The headlights would show her up as she ran, but she must keep well behind Laurie’s car so he could not see her. Once out, she would scream for help before she would ever let him put her back there. But—would he tell some tale, make them believe he had the right? Oh, she must not think of such things now. She must go at once.
God, my God, Jesus, my Savior, are You there? “Surely he shall deliver thee….”

The cold steel handle in her hand yielded and the door swung silently away, letting in a rush of cold air. She could feel big snowflakes on her face.

She cast one quick glance at Laurie. The door was opening and a man in a black coat was standing inside. He would see her go if she waited an instant longer. She swung herself out into the road in the snow, struggling to keep her footing, and immediately the sharp light from an approaching car picked her out and startled her to action. She sprang across into the darkness beyond that path of light.

She was dazed from the long, hard ride, her senses were almost stupefied, but the snow stung her sharply in the face as she hurtled across to the shadows on the opposite side of the street and huddled there for an instant. Should she just crouch there somewhere and wait until the cars were past? No, for Laurie would raise an outcry as soon as he discovered her escape. She must be out of sight entirely before he found out. She darted a look toward the road, and suddenly she saw that the colored lights coming were on a bus! A bus! Oh, if she could get into a bus! It didn’t matter where it was going, if she could only get away
some
where. It was coming on swiftly, but she dared not try to signal it here in front of this house where Laurie stood. She cast a glance ahead and saw that the road curved around a slanting corner. Perhaps she could get past that and manage to signal the bus, somehow.

She started ahead, slipping and stumbling as she went, but hurrying on. The snow blinded her, the sidewalk was slippery, the paving beneath the snow in places rough and uneven. Once just as she had almost made the corner, daring not to look back, she stumbled and almost went down, but a passing man reached out a hand and steadied her. She thanked him breathlessly and flew on, around the corner, past several stores whose bright lights made her shrink, and on to another corner. Now was she safe?

The bus was rounding the corner now and coming slowly on. It was halting; it was going to stop in front of the drugstore. Would she dare run out and get in while it stood there in that bright light, or should she wait until just before it started again and make a dash for it?

She was standing in a little alleyway between two stores in the shadow, just for the moment hidden in the darkness. But there was snow on the ground behind her, and the whole world seemed too bright because of the snow. Her dark coat would show up clearly against the white background.

There were not many people in the bus, and they seemed to be asleep, their heads thrown back comfortably against the seats. The bus stopped just a little past the drugstore, the shadow of a great willow tree trunk half hiding the entrance from the sidewalk. The driver sprang out and dashed into the drugstore. He was carrying a long envelope in his hand. One passenger roused and followed him, digging in his pocket for a coin. Marigold peered out cautiously from her hiding place into the store window. The driver handed the envelope to a clerk, threw a coin down on the counter, and now he was tossing down a glass of something. The passenger had just received a pack of cigarettes and was in the act of lighting one.

Marigold gave a quick glance back to the corner from which she had come. Laurie was not in sight yet. Could she make it? Oh, if he should appear just as she came out into the light she felt that her trembling limbs would let her down in an unconscious heap on the snowy pavement. But she took a long breath and dashed across into the open door of the bus, sinking into a seat far back in the shadow, scarcely able to get her breath again, though she had run not more than five steps. Was she really out of danger yet?

Then she heard a car come thundering up the street behind the bus. Had Laurie discovered she was gone and come after her?

She shrank lower and lower into the seat and closed her eyes, turning her face into the shadow.

It seemed ages before that driver came out, and the passenger who was smoking his cigarette. She dared not open her eyes and look at them. Not until she was far away from this town. Would the driver notice that he had another passenger? She prayed fervently that he would not, at least until she was too far from the town to be let off the bus.

At last the engine started, the bus lurched forward, made a wide circle, and turned back on its tracks down the street out of which she had just fled! Her heart stopped still. To her horror, she saw the big sign M
ARRIAGE
L
ICENSES
loom into view. Was she caught? She couldn’t jump out of that bus and run back. It was well under way now.

Marigold sank into the cushions, putting her arm on the window seat for a pillow, and turning her face so that it was entirely hidden from view, thankful that in her hasty choosing she had lit on a seat on the opposite side of the white house where Laurie had gone to arrange for their marriage.

Her heart almost stood still as the bus rumbled on down the street, expecting every minute that it would be held up and Laurie would come staggering in in search of her. What a fool she had been to get into a bus without knowing which way it was going!

She shut her eyes and did not dare look out until she was sure they had passed the place where Laurie’s car had stood. Then suddenly she was seized with anxiety to look back.

The snow was coming down so thickly that she could not be sure of anything but the two blurred points of Laurie’s car lights. But there seemed to be a group of dark figures standing on the sidewalk near the car. She could not tell whether one was Laurie or not, but as she looked she was sure she saw one of them jump into the car, and a moment later those two bright lights came wallowing on toward her. Was Laurie’s brain clear enough to have figured out her way of escape? Certain it was that a car was following the bus in wavering lines! Was it Laurie?

A
nd while all this had been going on, down in Washington Marigold’s mother was having a time of her own.

Some seventh sense vouchsafed to mothers only had told her that there was need for worry.

Three times during the evening, quite casually, she had tried to call her daughter on the telephone and had gotten no answer. She could not understand it. She was unable to think out a situation that would explain Marigold’s not being in at any of her calls. And surely all three could not be blunders of a sleepy operator, because she had started calling quite early in the evening to ask Marigold for the address of a secondhand book firm that was famous for being able to ferret out old books, even out-of-print books, and produce them in short order.

But when the third call failed, she could not control her nervousness, and she said she guessed she would go to bed. Her sister watched her speculatively. She was older than Mrs. Brooke, had practically brought her up, and had learned through the years to read her face easily. She knew that her sister was worried about something.

Marigold’s mother had been very surreptitious with her telephone calls. She had gone quite openly the first time and, coming back, said she guessed Marigold was out to supper with some of the other teachers. But when at nine o’clock she thought to try again, she waited until Sarah, the house servant, was talking to Mrs. Bevan about the next day’s ordering. The third time she had professed to go and get a clean handkerchief, but it took longer than was necessary and Marian Bevan studied her face when she returned. She was pretty sure what the trouble was but couldn’t quite think how to speak about it and so held her peace. She had a rare talent for holding her peace when many other women would have plunged in and torn away reservations and demanded an explanation. So she let her sister profess to be weary and retire to her room without asking what was the matter.