Chapter 7
Diana arrived back at the house with a face as white as chalk and eyes that were dark with terror. Her recent experience had overtopped all climaxes in her life and had almost made her forget for the time being the tragedy in her home. It seemed to her that the covering of decency had been stripped from life and love and everything worthwhile was left stark and naked. Was love like that, and could caresses turn to so hideous a thing? She never wanted to see or hear of Bobby Watkins again.
Helen stared at her as she entered the door, narrowing her eyes and searching her face.
“Why the tragedy?” she asked flippantly.
Diana ignored her remark.
“Where is my father?” she asked. Her voice was steady and grave, as if she had a serious matter on her mind.
Helen’s eyes grew belligerent. “He’s in the library calling up a taxi. We’re going away at once, so you needn’t think you’re going to have time to talk with him. You might as well learn to cut out any long conferences. I don’t like them. I remember how you used to do, and I don’t like it, understand?”
“Oh yes?” said Diana, coolly giving her antagonist a level look and walking slowly up the stairs.
Diana went to the front window in her room and looked out into the darkness. The lights in the cottage windows glimmered in a friendly way, but Diana only shuddered as she watched them. Once it came to her to wonder who it had been that came and stood behind her and rescued her from those terrible iron-muscled arms and those fiendish, moist, fat lips? Could it have been some passerby on the street who had heard her scream? Bobby Watkins! How had she ever fancied it might be possible for her to find refuge in marriage with Bobby Watkins even to escape from her present tragic situation? To think of having him around every day, with the right to kiss her—that way! How terrible!
But her meditations were interrupted by her father’s imperious knock at her door. “I’ve got to go now, Diana. I came up to—to—! Diana, have you nothing to say to me? You certainly have been acting in a strange way. I cannot understand it.”
Diana turned and faced him, and again the sternness of his tone seemed to overwhelm her so that she could not think nor speak, and her lips and chin were trembling in her effort to control the tears. Never, never since she was a little child and had disobeyed his express command not to take the ink bottle down off the desk and had spilled ink all over Mother’s new oriental rug had she ever heard her father speak to her in a tone like that. It seemed she could not bear it. It seemed that it was something irreparable!
“And so,” he said, eyeing her sternly with a kind of desperation in his face, “you have nothing to say. You do not want to ask forgiveness? You do not want to say you are sorry for such rude conduct to my wife?”
His wife! How she quivered at the words! Even so soon those words were separating them! But—forgiveness. What had she done? Broken down, yes, but that was his fault, not hers. He should have told her beforehand, talked it over with her and helped her to understand, allowed her to tell what she knew, not separated himself from her without a word and then tried to force this terrible relationship down her throat. She longed to cry out, “I was not rude to her, Father, you do not know. You did not hear what she said to me!” but she could only choke back a sob and turn her face away.
“So! You intend to keep it up, do you? You’re not even going to kiss me good-bye?” His voice was more deeply angry than she had ever heard it before. “I thought you loved me! And you’re not even going to kiss me good-bye!”
But Diana turned at that.
“I can’t, Father! I can’t anymore!” she burst forth sorrowfully. “She told me not to. She said I was too old to kiss my father, and she didn’t like it!”
He looked at her as if he could not believe his ears.
“And have you descended as low as that, that you will lie to me to prove her in the wrong?” His voice was grieved now, incredulous.
“Father! You know better! You know I do not lie. She said it. She took me upstairs and told me that just a few minutes ago!”
He stared at her an instant more, and then his face cleared with a half-contemptuous smile. “If Helen said that, you know she said it in a joke. You know she would never mean a thing like that. You are being willfully hateful to prove your point, just because years ago you took a prejudice against her on account of that silly dress. I would rather have bought you a dozen silk dresses than to have your judgment and your sweet innocent nature warped.”
“Father!” cried Diana desperately. “Go and ask her! She did say it. She was not joking. She never jokes. She means it. She was quite vexed. She said she did not like it and she wouldn’t stand for it! Go and ask her. Perhaps she will be willing to tell you the truth about it.”
“Are you implying that she also lies?” His voice was very stern again now.
“Oh Daddy, Daddy, dear!” Diana cried out, suddenly turning and putting her head down on the broad window seat, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs.
He watched her a moment, his brows knit in deep trouble, and then sighing turned away.
“Well, I cannot wait any longer for you to see your error,” he said sadly. “I never thought that my child would behave like this. Well”—wistfully—“I must go.”
He turned and walked sadly out of the room and down the stairs, and a moment later she heard the taxi driving away. He was gone!
She flung herself on her bed and wept until it seemed her heart was breaking. Wept until Maggie came up and tried to soothe her, bathed her face with cool water, said, “There, my lamb, my lamb,” and tried in every way to hearten her.
At last the violent sobbing was over, and she could speak to the old servant.
“I can’t stay here, Maggie, I can’t! I can’t! She wants to get rid of me. She says I’m to go upstairs….” And she poured out all the directions that the new mistress had given.
Maggie’s face was full of indignation as she listened, but at last she said, “Well, my lamb, it’s a sore trial I mind, put it how you will, but I’d advise you to get to your bed an’ sleep the night over it, an’ in the morn we’ll see what to do. Now, I’ll fetch you a sip o’ hot milk, for you didn’t eat enough o’ the fine dinner we had to keep a bird alive. And do you put on your little bed gown and get you to your rest. The morn will bring you new wisdom. Bide you till the morn. Then we’ll see.”
Diana was worn out with excitement and emotion, and she readily fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, after the drink of hot milk. But for one in sorrow sleep does not last. It suddenly vanishes in the small hours of the night and the sufferer is left to toss and turn and see the ghosts of possibilities all go trooping by. So Diana woke. It might have been one o’clock or it might have been later, and sharply on her waking thoughts came the memory of a flower lying in the dewy grass, staring up from almost underfoot, pale with the reflection of the moon drifting through dense branches.
The flower! Oh, why had she not picked up her flower! Was it really there at all or had she dreamed it? If it was there, then that made six. There were three the morning the letter came, one yesterday morning, one this morning, and now this one tonight, if it was really a flower and not a figment of her imagination, not just a bit of paper or a fragment of fluff blown about by the wind.
Somehow her drowsy thoughts hovered around that flower without touching on her troubles. It was as if her first waking consciousness was afraid to think of all that had come upon her, as if she took refuge in thoughts of the pleasant bit of romance that seemed to be dropping into her quiet life.
More and more as she grew wider awake she longed to know whether that flower were really there. It seemed as if her only hope of riding out her troubles lay in knowing whether that had been a flower, a real flower, there in the dim shadows. If it had been a flower, she might grasp its sweetness to her heart and go on somehow working out her strange problems. Suddenly it seemed to her that she must rise and run out there and discover for herself.
Oh, she knew it wasn’t a reasonable thing to do at all. The house was dark, Maggie was asleep, all the countryside was asleep. It wasn’t a safe thing for her to do, either, to go down that lonely drive in the night on such a foolish errand. Her father wouldn’t approve. Her mother would not have approved. Maggie would cry out and insist on going along if she knew. But Maggie didn’t know. Maggie was sound asleep and snoring. And Diana knew even before she made the first actual move to rise from her bed that she was going. She must know whether that flower was there or not. If she waited until dawn, some mysterious person might come by and get it. She would never know then whether it had been there at all, and it seemed most important to know positively whether it was there now.
All the time she was flinging on garments, stepping into slippers, and throwing a long, dark silk robe around her, she was resolutely refusing to let her mind spring back and reveal to her all the sorrow and horror that was there beneath the surface of her consciousness.
When she was ready, she crept down the hall and stairs with silent tread, unfastened the door, and slid out like a wraith.
The moon was low in the west by now and was casting long, faint, weird shadows across the grass. In her dark robe with her silent tread she seemed like one of the shadows, a swiftly moving shadow as noiseless as a moth drifting along on faint, pale moonbeams.
As she approached the group of trees and was about to pass into the depth of shade they made, the memory of her experience burst back upon her with full force and she paused, frightened, looking ahead, listening. Was it conceivable that Bobby might be lingering around the place yet? She shuddered at the memory of his lips, his great possessive arms. But somehow she must go on. A power within herself was compelling her, would not be satisfied until she found the flower. And though her heart was wildly beating, she went on again. There could be no turning back. Silly! Why should she be frightened? There would be no one around at this hour, of course, and who would want to steal a silly little single cast-out flower in the grass—if there was a flower at all. She must know. So she went on.
She slipped into the depth of the darkness and stood looking down until her eyes grew accustomed to the blackness, and suddenly she saw it there, right at her feet, staring up at her, its fringed petals making a soft blur of light in the dimness.
With her heart beating as wildly as if she were seeing a spirit-flower, she stooped and snatched it, and then turning, fled back to the house, her white face showing like the passing of a moonbeam. For now it seemed that Bobby, with his hot breath fanning her face and his fat arms reached out to clasp her, was running with great strides just behind her and would presently win out in the race and she would be in that awful embrace again. And there would not be a stranger near at hand this time with a voice of authority to protect her.
She was like a sleepwalker in a nightmare as she ran until she reached the front door and fastened it behind her. But unlike the nightmare victim, she did reach the door before she came to herself. She stood there panting, her eyes closed, leaning back against the door for a moment’s respite, trying to get her breath and courage to go on and know what life had in store for her. She seemed to know that as soon as she had mounted the stairs again and entered her room her trouble in its entirety would rush upon her, take her in its grasp, and sting her with its sorrow again. So she lingered until her breath came back and then crept softly up to her bed, with Maggie still noisily slumbering in the back bedroom with the door open wide to be near to guard her bairn if anything should trouble her.
Back in her bed again, strangely enough the evil specter of her troubles stood at bay, exorcised, perhaps, by the fragrant breath of the flower.
She did not put the carnation into the vase with the others but kept it in her hand, and it lay against her cheek on the pillow, and whether because of sheer weariness or because the flower seemed to bring something like peace upon her worn spirit, she fell asleep again.
When morning came at last she slept on until Maggie, worried about her, slipped softly in to see if all was right and found her sleeping with the flower on the pillow just touching her lips.
“Aw, the poor wee thing!” she said under her breath. “The poor wee thing! If her father could but see her now! But I doubt if he’d understand the while yet. He’s that fey about the hussy! Poor silly man! He’ll be that shamed when he understands! An’ he’ll see it yet! He’s a good man, only just silly for the whiles. But I doubt it’ll be too late for savin’ his girlie’s happiness! Poor wee thing!”
Then Maggie slipped quietly away and closed the door.
But a half hour later the sun cast a warm finger across the pillow, touching Diana’s eyelids and lighting up the flower, and she awoke with a start. No bewilderings now. The whole terrible tragedy flashed across her consciousness in full force, and her mind was on duty at once informing her of what was necessary to be done. Instantly the words of her new stepmother came to her about the changes that were to be made, strong hints of what might happen to things that had grown dear to the girl through the years, and she realized that if she did not save them they would go out of her care and keeping and would be sold or destroyed ruthlessly.
And now as she lay still she saw what she had to do. Whether she stayed herself or not, those precious things of her mother’s must be put in a safe place. Sometime Father would rouse to the situation and inquire for the household goods. If he was ever disillusioned, he would surely feel bad that they were gone. Moreover, many of them belonged to Diana. Both her father and mother had spoken of this often. The ancestral dishes, the portraits, a lot of things that she had packed away in inconspicuous places and had hoped were safe from the iconoclast, she now saw would be ruthlessly rooted out and sold or destroyed.
She did some swift thinking and decided that she would send them to a storage house. Even if she went away herself, she could not take them with her until she had someplace to put them, and it might take days to find the right place. It might even take weeks. She had a little money in her own checking account and could pay the storage and get along somehow if worse came to worst, but the things that were to be saved must be saved today or it would be too late. They could not be gotten out of the house after Helen came back, that was certain.
Further consideration made it plain also that the goods must be stored where they could not be traced and brought back. What Helen had not seen or noticed might not be missed, but it was certain that Grandmother’s sprigged china and many other little things would be. Well, she would not telephone to the storage house from home, for that perhaps might be traceable from the itemized telephone bill. She would run down to the village, three quarters of a mile away, and telephone. She would tell them that they must come by two o’clock. That would give her time to get her own furniture ready to go.
Suddenly Diana rose and began rapidly to dress. There were no tears this morning. There was excitement, anxiety, overwhelming haste.
But just as she turned to leave her room her eye fell on the flower lying on her pillow, and she caught her breath with a great wonder in her eyes. She had jumped up so suddenly and been so absorbed in her problems that she had not noticed the flower, for it had fallen away from her face over to the other end of the pillow.
She went slowly over to the bed and touched the flower, lifted it to her face, and drew a deep breath of its perfume. It was real, then. She had thought it a dream! Then she had really gotten up and gone out on the driveway to find it! How strange! Poor little flower! It should have been in water all night! Yet it seemed almost as fresh as its mates for whom she had cared so tenderly. How did it happen that the flower was out there in the evening? Had all the others been put there at that hour? It didn’t seem possible; they had been so fresh and dewy. It was a mystery flower. She could not solve it. She just knew it had been a comfort to her in this her great life sorrow.
Then like a flash she remembered all that she had to do today! She waited only to put her flower in the cry
stal vase with its mates, and then she hurried downstairs.
Maggie came out into the hall with an anxious face and saw that Diana had on her hat.
“You’re not goin’ away?” she asked fearsomely. “The breakfast is near ready an’ we can talk whilst you’re eatin’.”
“I’m running down to the village to do some long-distance telephoning,” said Diana breathlessly, glancing at the clock. “I don’t want it to go on the bill for Helen to see. I’ll explain it all when I get back. I won’t be long.”
“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.