The Flower Brides (43 page)

“But couldn’t you wait for a bite first?”

“No, Maggie, I must go at once. I want to get some people before they are gone to business. I’ll be right back.”

Diana dashed out the door and down the drive without waiting for further parley, and Maggie, with distress in her face, followed to the veranda and watched her out of sight.

“Now what’s the poor wee thing got on her mind this time?” she said aloud to herself, her arms akimbo, her cheeks red with worry, her mouth in a vexed line. “It’s a bad business, tormentin’ the poor wee bairn. Her father is storin’ up sorrow, an’ him not knowin’ what the little hussy is at, but the day’ll come when he will. Well, he’ll rue the day he ever saw that flipperty-gib.”

Just then the scones sent up a smell of burning and she flew to their rescue.

“Poor wee thing, she’ll be that hungry when she comes back,” said Maggie as she set about preparing a more elaborate breakfast than she had planned.

As Diana went flying down the drive, her mind was busy with her plans, but her breath was coming in long, sobbing gasps. Out here in the open she felt that no one could hear her for the moment and she let herself give a long trembling moan, let the smarting tears fall for a minute or two. She felt sick and dizzy with all she had been through and with loss of sleep. She began to tremble as she neared the scene of her silent struggle last night and wondered at herself that she had dared come down there in the middle of the night—just for a flower! What was a flower, after all? It probably belonged to someone else and all the fairy romance she had woven about it was just of her imagination. Perhaps someone had plenty of these and threw them away every now and then. Yet there it had been in the middle of the night as if it dropped down from the soft moonbeams. There for her greatest need. Well, it was probably the only one she would have found this morning if she had waited. It was likely placed there every night instead of morning and the dew kept it fresh.

Then suddenly she started back, stopped, and looked down at her feet, for there lay another carnation, sweet and pink and fresh, just like all the rest. She gasped in astonishment and looked furtively around her. What could it mean? It was fully two hours before her usual time to walk that way, and yet there it lay smiling up at her.

Then she stopped and picked it up. As she touched it to her lips, the tears came rushing down again, and she sobbed softly to herself as she went on her way. It certainly was strange and uncanny, and somehow it seemed as if somebody like her mother were doing this. She almost believed for an instant that the flower actually fell from heaven at her feet. It seemed so wonderful to have it come just when she so needed comfort, and she hugged it to her lips and kissed it, sobbing softly as she hurried on. As she passed the end of the cottage and neared the street, she paused to brush away the tears. She must not cry in the street! And she must hurry on or she would perhaps miss the mover for the day, and those things
must
leave the house before Helen got back or they would never leave, that was certain.

She could hear Helen’s laughter now if she should come even while they were being moved, and knew as well as if it had happened before her eyes how quickly she would have her father persuaded that it was absurd for them to go. Oh, Helen would never let the things go out of the house until she had investigated every one, that was certain. And she would save some of them for the pleasure of destroying them. No one who hadn’t seen Helen work would probably believe that. If Diana had not suffered from her methods many times, perhaps she would not have believed it herself. But she was taking no chances. The things she loved would go out of the house before Helen got there if she had to drag them out one by one herself and hide them in the barn or the back meadow.

Such thoughts hurried her feet until she reached the village drugstore and went in to telephone. Even then she had to try three storage places before she found one that would promise to come that afternoon. Diana found she was trembling when she hung up the receiver.

She waited only to get a few trifling things she would need in packing, and then she hurried back.

On her way home her thoughts were leaping ahead, planning what she would do first, counting up different matters that must be attended to before the movers arrived. In imagination she took down her pictures and curtains, folded her garments into drawers and trunks, gathered out her books from the library, tabulated on her fingers the boxes and furniture stored away in attic and cellar that must not be forgotten. It seemed as if the thoughts in her mind were like bees buzzing around in confusion to be sorted out and marshaled in orderly array. She was fairly running the last lap of the way and arrived at home quite out of breath. Maggie had to draw her by sheer force to the dining room.

“Sit you down,” she said, vexed. “Here have I kept breakfast waiting all this time. You cannot work on an empty stomach. Come, eat a good breakfast, or I’ll not help you a stroke. Your porridge first. I do not hold with the folks that puts sour fruit juices in on an empty stomach. It heartens you to get a good fill of porridge first, nice an’ hot! And there are scones to come with strawberry jam. Mind your milk, too. You cannot keep up unless you eat. I’ll wager you na slept the night much. You must eat if you cannot sleep. You do not want to give her a chance to have you sick on her hands.”

So Diana ate a sketchy breakfast.

“I haven’t time,” she protested as she hurriedly buttered a scone. “I’m sending my things away, Maggie, the things she would smash or take away. I can’t leave them here for her to destroy, and I won’t let her have my precious furniture that Mother got for me.”

“But where will you send them, child?”

“To storage. At least for a while till I know what to do.”

Maggie looked startled. “Won’t that cost you a lot? You mightta sent them to my sister’s house, only it’s such a wee bit housie I don’t mind where she could put them.”

“No,” said Diana firmly. “I’m not going to involve you and your sister in my troubles. She’d just go there and get them if she found out. No, Maggie, this is the best way. It doesn’t cost so much, and I can get them out any time I like, of course. They’ll be protected in storage and be insured. I have a little money of my own, you know. I’m quite sure this is the only way to do it.”

“Then come!” said the servant determinedly. “We’ll get it off your mind. I’ll take down the draperies and brush them. Do you put away your pretties in the drawers.”

They set to work in silence, and in due time the room that had been so sweet and homelike was reduced to bare walls and desolate furniture standing around. Even the pretty bed was wearing only its springs now, the mattress being trussed around, covered with an old sheet, and neatly tied with rope by the capable hands of Maggie.

Suddenly Diana turned around and surveyed the place, and a great desolation swept over her.

“I can’t stay here, Maggie,” she cried with a soft little wail in her voice. “I couldn’t stand living in the third story and having her take my pretty room and put herself or her guests here, the kind of guests she always has when she has her way. Am I wicked, Maggie, that I feel I can’t stay here? Not even my Mother would want me to, I’m sure. I couldn’t stay and have her always putting me in the wrong before Father! It wouldn’t do him any good, and it would make endless trouble. I couldn’t, Maggie, could I? I
must go
!”

She bent her head, and the tears gushed out as she stood with pitiful clasped hands and let the tears splash down on the rug at her feet.

“But where would you go?” asked Maggie, lifting her face and discovering the slow tears that for some time had been coursing over her honest, sorrowful face. “What can you do, my wee birdling?”

Diana stood silent for a minute, then she lifted her face, and her eyes were dark and tragic as she looked at Maggie.

“I can make some visits!” she said bravely, drawing a deep breath. “I thought it all out on the way home. Maggie, I’ve got to be gone before they come home tonight. They’ll likely be here for dinner, and I must be gone before they come. I couldn’t meet her—
them
—again, not now with Father feeling as he does against me. I’ve got to go. There’s Aunt Harriet, a great many miles away. I can take the sleeper at midnight and be there in the morning. And there are those girls that invited me to house parties. They’ll all be glad to have me visit them a few days each. I’ll write them that I’m coming their way and will stop off a few days if it’s convenient. And by that time I’ll get settled in my mind and know what I want to do.”

“But what if your Aunt Harriet isn’t at home?” queried Maggie anxiously.

“She’s always at home. She’s an invalid, you know,” said Diana. “She’s often invited me.”

“You better send her a wee wire, then, sayin’ you’re comin’.”

“No,” said Diana, “I’ll just go. I can’t explain things in a wire, and I haven’t time for a letter.”

“Aw, my wee lamb! If I only had a place of my own, I’d share it with you! I’d not let you stray around the world this way. If I only hadn’t of let my sister’s husband borrow my earnings to buy his house! To be sure, I’m that welcome, an’ I doubt not he’d take you in, too, if I’d asked him.”

“No, Maggie!” said Diana. “You’re very kind, but I want to get farther away. But we mustn’t stand here and talk; there’s so much to do. It’s almost twelve o’clock and the van will be here at two. I’ve all my clothes to pack. I’ll take a suitcase and the big Gladstone bag, that’ll be all I’ll need for visiting. The rest of my things I’ll pack in the bureau drawers.”

They went silently to work again, like two who had just read a death warrant, speaking no words that were not necessary, furtive tears slipping down their cheeks, which each ignored.

At last the work was done, and Maggie insisted on Diana’s lying down a little while on a bed she had fixed for her in the guest room.

“I’ll just run down the stair an’ get you a bite to eat an’ a cup o’ tea whilst you sleep,” said Maggie.

“Oh no, Maggie,” protested the girl. “I can’t sleep now till it’s over. Wait till the things are gone. Then we’ll have lunch and rest.”

“You’d best drink a sip o’ tea!” admonished the woman and hurried down to get it. Then Diana sat down at her little desk where she had spent so many happy hours of her life studying and writing, and penned a letter to her father. It had to be done quickly, for the men would come and the desk must go, and she couldn’t think of writing
that
letter anywhere else but at her own desk. It seemed as if another desk or another room might somehow snatch the meaning of her letter and turn it to a traitor use. She must write it here with her pen dipped in the love and agony of her heart, here in the four walls of her dismantled room before they became alien walls, sheltering her enemy. And she must write it rapidly, too, because her heart might weaken if she took a long time and weighed her words too well. She would just tell briefly what were the facts.

And so with her own fountain pen that had been her father’s gift on her last birthday, her initials set in green-and-gold enamel in its barrel, she wrote. Oh, she had never, never thought when he gave it to her that she would write such words as she was writing now with that cherished pen.

D
ear Father
,

The movers arrived just as she was writing the last word, and Diana hastily sealed her letter, addressed it to her father, and swallowed the tea that Maggie had brought her. Then she went down to meet the movers and show them what things had to go.

How ruthlessly those stalwart men marshaled the few household articles, which had seemed so many only a few minutes before, and dropped them into the depths of that yawning van. Diana rushed from cellar to attic to make sure everything was gone that she had intended. Then she directed that a trunk containing part of her wardrobe should be put where it would be accessible if needed while the other things were in storage.

They stood in the doorway together, the servant and the girl, watching the big van rattle off jauntily down the drive and disappear, carrying with it a part of what had once been the furnishings of an unusually happy home. The old servant had her lips set in a grim line, and she was sniffing back a stray tear.

“Well,” she said with a heavy sigh, “at least they’ll be safe. An’ now,” she said, turning back to Diana, “come! I’ve got a bit lunch ready. Sit you down now an’ eat. Yes, you’re not to wait. It’s nice an’ hot, an’ I’m not lettin’ you leave it to get cold.”