The Flower Brides (67 page)

“Come,” he said, “shall we go up?”

It was Maggie who met them on the stair landing and took the sheaf of carnations from her.

“I’ll put them in water,” she said, like a caress, and Diana smiled and yielded them up, knowing they would be safe.

Then Gordon led Diana into her father’s room and up to the bedside.

“I’ve brought her, Mr. Disston,” he said, as if he had just been in the next room for her.

“You’ve
brought
her?” The sick man gripped the young hand in his, a great light coming into his face. “Is this really—my daughter—?” He peered through the shadows of the darkened room. “Turn up the light, Nurse. Is this you, Diana, or am I dreaming?”

Diana stooped over and kissed his forehead. “Yes, Father dear! I’m really here!”

“And—you won’t go away—again?” he asked anxiously.

“Not as long as you want me here, Father!”

“I shall always want you here,” he said wistfully. “But—you won’t vanish while I am asleep! You won’t let anybody murder you?”

“No,” laughed Diana tenderly, kneeling beside him with her arm around his shoulder, her hand touching his cheek in the old familiar way.

“Ah!” he said slowly, feasting his eyes upon her face for a moment. “Now I can go to sleep! I’ve needed sleep for so long, but I couldn’t sleep. Now I can!”

Gordon had slipped away. Diana could hear the car with the sound muffled, coasting slowly down the drive, and she knelt there beside her father’s bed, his hand gripping hers, his love around her, reconciliation—home—love—! It was sweet! Her own eyelids dropped. She was asleep with her cheek on her father’s pillow.

The nurse touched her on her shoulder lightly.

“You could go to your own room now,” she said. “He is really asleep at last. This will do him a great deal of good. I’ll call you if he wakens, but I don’t think he will.”

Maggie had prepared one of the guest rooms for her. Her flowers were there in a large crystal vase, filling the room with fragrance. Maggie had laid out her robe and turned down the covers.

Gordon MacCarroll came to the head of the stairs and whispered that he was downstairs with the policemen and she need not feel afraid. She was to go to sleep, and he gave her a smile that shot through her heart like sweet fire.

She fell asleep almost at once with the light of that smile in her heart and the memory of those low-spoken words,
“Because I love you!”

Sometime in the night there was a disturbance out below the spring house, and several shots were fired. There were muffled sounds of stealthy feet, the clang of a police car off in the distance, and one more human rat stayed in his depredations! But the father and daughter slept on and heard nothing of it.

I
t was Gordon MacCarroll who met the reporters from the press the next morning and answered their questions in a quiet, steady voice. He said that Mr. Disston had had a slight fall the day before and was feeling a little under the weather this morning, so was not able to come down and see them, but he would be grateful for as little publicity as possible. Yes, it was true he had announced the fact over the radio that his daughter was missing. In these days of dreadful happenings perhaps he had been overanxious when he did not hear from her for a few days and was not sure where she had gone. But it was all right now. His daughter was at home and safe. She had merely started out to visit some relatives and friends and did not realize that her father would be anxious. Yes, it was true that some beings of the underworld had taken advantage of the radio announcement to send a note to Mr. Disston demanding ransom money, but the police had been prompt in rounding them up and putting them where they could not menace others.

It was all most courteous and quiet, and somehow the reporters found themselves bowed away with a rather prosaic story instead of the thrilling tale they had expected to extract.

One reporter, it is true, asked a few questions about the new Mrs. Disston. Wasn’t there some trouble between her and Mr. Disston’s daughter? He told them calmly that Mrs. Disston was away for a few days with friends. No, Mr. Disston’s illness was not such as would warrant her coming back immediately, especially as the daughter was here now. Mrs. Disston would doubtless return very soon.

It was a quiet, peaceful Sunday, with Maggie making a nice dinner in the kitchen and preparing a tempting tray for the invalid; with the nurse coming and going silently; with Diana sitting near her father’s side, her flowers on the chest at the foot of his bed where he could see them; and with the consciousness that Gordon MacCarroll was downstairs with an officer of the law, just to make sure there were no more criminals waiting around.

It was a time when Diana could rest at last and not even think, though there were pleasant things to consider, she realized later, when she was rested.

Monday Gordon had to go to his business, but he returned twice during the day to see if all was well and came home early at night to get the latest news, which his mother had gathered from Maggie.

Maggie, in all her Scotch righteousness, had met the reporters all day and stood for her family in great shape. A reporter would have had to cross her dead body before he could ever get by into the house, and curious neighbors went away baffled beyond belief.

There was just the quiet and peace that was needed for the invalid, and Diana basked in it and marveled that she was here after her days of sorrow and hard work.

The doctor came and went quietly, studied his patient, and seemed pleased with his progress, yet warned them not to let him have the slightest bit of excitement or extra exertion.

But Stephen Disston seemed content just to lie still and watch his daughter going about the room, bringing her vase of carnations for him to see, and sitting where he could see her with a book or a bit of sewing or just sitting with her hands resting in her lap. But there was a sadness in the smile upon his face that the doctor hoped would disappear as the result of the shock passed.

They would not let him talk, nor let Diana talk much to him. The doctor had warned her about speaking of their separation or the kidnapping incident, so there was nothing to do but wait upon him and smile, sit quietly and love him.

It was Tuesday afternoon that they sat thus, keeping quiet company with one another while the nurse took her afternoon walk.

There had been no news from Helen, not even a telephone message, though she must have seen something in the papers if she was not otherwise too occupied. But Helen was not much given to reading even newspapers. They had not been thinking of her. Perhaps for the time she was entirely forgotten, as if she had no connection with their scheme of things.

It was then, just when she was least expected, that she came.

Of course, it was because she had a key that she was able to enter the house and evade the watchful Maggie. Even then she got no farther than the foot of the stairs without a challenge.

Maggie, bearing a big spoon from which she had just wiped yellow batter with a capable forefinger, and from which a large drop of yellow batter was about to fall, swung open the door to the butler’s pantry and stood like a glowering nemesis in her way.

“An’ where were
you
?” she demanded. “It’s high time you put in an appearance! But you’re not to go up the stair till the doctor gives you permission! The master’s had a fall an’ a bad turn with his heart, an’ he’s not to be excited. You’d best ask the nurse if you can go up!”

Helen stood there for an instant looking at the masterful Maggie then put out a bejeweled hand and gave her a push backward, a push right in her ample chest that sent her entirely off her balance. Then with a laugh she ran lightly up the stairs.

She appeared in the doorway of her husband’s room and stood there an instant taking in the situation. Diana was sitting quietly with her back to the door, a book in her lap, and a smile on her face. Stephen Disston was dozing upon his pillow. They looked complete enough without her. There was a mirror across from Diana that showed the sweet look upon her face, that look that Helen always had hated.

She saw the sheaf of flowers near the bed, and she glimpsed through the window the nurse returning from her walk.

She stood poised an instant longer, studying her husband’s face with her own hard, beautiful eyes, and then she laughed, that bright, heartless laugh.

Diana started, lifted her eyes swiftly to the mirror, and met the amused contempt in the eyes of her father’s wife! One instant their glances held, and then Helen whirled around and went lightly down the hall, her laugh trailing delicately behind her. Down the stairs she went and put her head in at the kitchen door.

“I’m going on a cruise,” she announced blithely. “You can tell them if they inquire. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone. They’re getting along gloriously without me, and I never was much good in a sickroom. I hate it! Just tell them I’m on the yacht
Lotus Blossom
. Mr. Disston will understand.”

She was gone before Maggie could recover her breath to reply, and Maggie dashed after her, trying to walk lightly for the master’s sake yet hurrying with all her sturdy might.

But when she finally arrived outside with the door closed behind her, Helen was far down the walk, breezing along like a bit of thistledown, and when Maggie flung herself down the path after her to give her a piece of her mind and let her know how it would look to the world if she went away with the master sick, Helen only turned and flung back that childish laugh and skipped on.

When Maggie, all puffed and speechless, arrived at the gate, Helen was climbing into the bus and, turning, gave a mocking smile and a wave of her hand as she rode away.

Maggie, unable to believe her eyes, stood staring after the bus, an eloquent look on her loyal red countenance. A few seconds later she burst in upon Mrs. MacCarroll, all tears and anger and out of breath.

“Never mind, Maggie,” said Mrs. MacCarroll soothingly. “You know the Lord can take care of her. Just leave it to Him. He’ll teach her in His own way. You can’t!”

“I suppose you’re right,” said Maggie, snuffing back the tears, “an’ I’m an old fool to grieve, but it’s a sad thing for the likes of a young hussy like that to carry on lightly when her good man is lying sick.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say anything about it now, not unless he asks. Maybe he didn’t see her.”

“I’m thinkin’ he didn’t!” said Maggie. “I heard only her silly laughter, like a fool!”

“Well, leave it to the Lord. He’ll bring it all out right in His own time and way.”

So Maggie went back to finish her cake, and nobody said a word about the new mistress of the house. For Diana had looked quickly at her father when that laugh rang out and saw to her joy that he slept on and did not mention Helen’s coming, wondering as the calm days went by if nobody else had seen her at all, wondering if perhaps she hadn’t been dreaming herself.

One evening Gordon came up to see Mr. Disston for a few minutes. The sick man had had a good day and seemed brighter than since his fall, but still the doctor would not let him try to get up. They talked pleasantly on everyday topics, a bit of politics, the brighter outlook of the money market, the prophecy of a noted economist that things were looking up. Then Gordon turned toward Diana, who sat quietly on the other side of the bed listening.

“Have you been out today?” he asked.

“Why no,” she said, with a smile and a little shiver of dread. “No, I don’t think I’ve been out of the house since I came back. I’m so glad to get here that I don’t want to leave it.”

“Well, that won’t do. We’ll be having you sick next. Suppose we take a little walk now and catch the end of the sunset and a bit of the moonrise? Don’t you think she should have a little exercise, Mr. Disston?”

“Yes, go, dear!” her father said, smiling. “I’m going to turn in now anyway, for I feel as if I might be able to really sleep tonight.”

She kissed him good night, and the two young people went downstairs and out into the “quiet colored end of evening.” Diana suddenly felt breathless. It was the first time she had been alone with Gordon since he brought her home, and it suddenly became a momentous occasion.
Why?
she wondered. She had never felt like this before. It was probably because she had been through so many terrible experiences and then been shut up in the house so long. She was just excited, she told herself. She tried not to let herself remember that sometime he was going to tell her about those mystery flowers, why he had sent them,
“Because I love you!”
She had been telling herself that there was some other explanation to those words than the ordinary meaning when a young man says them to a girl. She had been telling herself that those were spirit-flowers and there was something above the earthly about their coming. She had fondly believed that she was thoroughly sane and sensible about the view her thoughts had taken of the whole thing, yet now this thrill of joy! Had all her fancied sanity been false?

So they strolled out into the evening with braided colors changing in the sky all around them and the soft perfume of growing things in the air.