Bride in Flight Read Free Page A

tell her Christine knew and was still prepared to marry him. That was it. Then they could both face the noon ceremony without dread of a scene.
    It was reduced to simple terms now. Common sense. All problems could be resolved if you didn’t run away from them. She felt the color flooding back into her cheeks.
    The door burst open and Patty and Nicola burst in, cases in their hands.
    Afterwards she wondered just what had kept her from pouring out the whole story. It would have simplified things. Was it pride? Or loyalty? Or bewilderment? Or was it shock, numbing her reasoning powers?
    They were as full of high spirits as any bridal attendants, laughing, chattering, sweet, determined to make her feel surrounded by love and well-wishers, if not of family, of friends.
    “A cup of tea first,” said Nicola, “then down to the serious business of robing the bride and ourselves.” Robing the bride ... it was as near as that. No time to think. Kirsty clung to one decision. When the girls left her to dress themselves, she must ring Gilbert again. Before he could speak she would get out the whole thing. It would give him the chance to tell Dallas. Kirsty shivered with dread. Might Dallas still come, even so?
    She answered some teasing remark of Patty’s with a detachment she was almost proud of, clutched again at what she was trying to think out. It could mean a lot to Gilbert in the agony of mind he must be in, to know she trusted him ... that was the life-line in the thoughts and doubts that threatened to engulf her.
    Kirsty sprang up. “Girls, we must get going. I had a bath when I got up, but it’s so stickily hot already, I’ll take a quick shower. When I’m dressed you can get ready yourselves. Don’t take the posies out of the Cellophane till the last moment, or they’ll wilt.”
    They weren’t terribly rushed for time. Patty and Nicola set about their task lovingly. Nicola brushed the long fair hair till it shone, allowed her to twist it up herself, set a comb sparkling with brilliants in the French roll, to gleam mistily through the billowing tulle that would soon veil her head.
    “Satin was the only material for you, Christine,” said Patty, smoothing the skirt from the waist over the hips. “You’re so sculptured ... just like a figurehead. No bouffant styles, just heavy drapes, stately and elegant.”
    Kirsty wrinkled up her nose, spoiling the statuesque effect. “Really Patty! ‘Stately and elegant!’ Me ... Little Orphant Annie!”
    Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes widened. Little Orphant Annie ... that was what Dallas had called her. She closed her eyes in the instinctive gesture for a moment of privacy and regained her control. It was too late to think about those things now.
    “There! Oh, Christine darling, you look wonderful. Now, whatever you do, don’t sit down. You can pace up and down, practising how to walk with a train, if you like, till we get dressed. Nicky, now we’ve got Christine dressed except for her veil, how about a quick shower? I’m like Christine ... my morning bath seems aeons distant.”
    The scampered, both going into the shower-room at once. The sound of the water swishing coincided with the ring of the telephone. Kirsty carefully picked up her train, disposed of it over her arm with due regard to not creasing it. She just hoped that whoever it was would wait. She almost ran down the stairs. She knew a feathering of apprehension as she put her hand on the receiver. What if it were Gilbert to tell her ... she picked it up, put it to her ear.
    Good heavens, there was a long-distance call coming ... from Brisbane? Who on earth—oh, it could be a greeting, she supposed. Gilbert had friends there.
    The operator’s voice, ordinary and reassuring somehow, in its routine phrasing, requested her to hang on till the call was connected.
    “Coming now...”
    A woman’s voice, unmistakably not Australian ... what was it? Yorkshire, she thought. Then all conjecture fled away in