The Bucket Flower. Donald R. Wilson
and very kind. His assertiveness on their river trip, and his agreeableness toward inviting their family members to join the “St. Augustine Six” impressed her.
It took several days to confront Mr. Everett alone, but at last she managed to corner him in the garden before dinner. “Would you like to take a trip across Florida with me, Mr. Everett?” she asked. She was horrified; the phrasing wasn’t at all like she had practiced.
He stared open-mouthed at her proposal and then finally spoke. “What a courageous idea! It’s an honor to be asked to escort you across Florida, but unfortunately I’m going to Europe with my parents in a little over two weeks. Then I must be in Newport for the season.” He appeared to be disappointed.
She was stunned. She hadn’t considered that he might have other plans. She felt the redness rising up her neck as she mumbled an embarrassed apology and hurried into the dining room to have dinner with Aunt Sarah. Her aunt told her she had received a telegram from Papa confirming Edward Cushing’s arrival in Jacksonville on one of Oceanic’s ships in three days. Until this moment, her ideas about a trip across the state were hypothetical. Now she was determined to break away, even if it meant going alone.
The number of guests at the hotel, which had never been overflowing thanks to the panic on Wall Street, was even fewer now as the season came to a close. Still looking for an escort, she made her plans without informing Aunt Sarah. Mr. Davis was also a good candidate—intelligent, full of fun and adventure. But she asked him what his immediate plans were before revealing her own. Mr. Davis, she was disappointed to learn, was leaving for a family gathering in Saratoga in the morning followed by an excursion to the Chicago World’s Fair.
That left the enigmatic Mr. Bolton, of whom she expected little—not that he wasn’t a gentleman, but he was quiet, and she had difficulty knowing what he was thinking. On the trip up the Oklawaha, he had worked with the Negro at the boiler, a positive quality. He had been almost as frenetic as Henrietta Thompson when there had been mosquitoes around. Nevertheless, he was her last hope. She waited for a favorable moment to speak to Mr. Bolton alone. She came up to him in the grand foyer while Aunt Sarah was on the far side of the room making arrangements for the handling of their trunks. Her aunt had agreed to leave St. Augustine before Mr. Cushing arrived.
“Mr. Bolton, when Aunt Sarah heads north tomorrow, I plan to travel across the peninsula to Fort Myers, and I will require an escort. I was wondering if you might be willing to favor me with your company. We would observe all the social proprieties, of course.” Approaching a gentleman in such a fashion was embarrassing, especially a second time, and her words sounded stilted.
He looked at her without expression, making it difficult to predict his response. Then, to her satisfaction, he said, “Yes, Miss Sprague, I’d be delighted to accompany you, and naturally we will observe all the social proprieties.” Surely he realized that for two unattached persons of opposite sexes to be traveling across the state together was highly improper. “There is just one thing,” he added.
“Yes, Mr. Bolton, what is it?”
“I’m a little short of cash until I get back to Baltimore.”
“No need to concern yourself, Mr. Bolton,” she said. “I can extend you a loan until we return.” She was disappointed that it had come to this, but in effect, she was paying for him to accompany her. He hesitated, and it looked as if he had something else to say. She waited.
“I wonder if you could make me an advance to settle up my hotel bill.” His eyes darted about as if he were embarrassed to have to reveal to a lady his lack of funds.
After Aunt Sarah had gone back to her room, she told the clerk that there had been a change in plans and to have two of her trunks put on the train through Palatka to Tampa instead of New York. The day before she had shipped her botanical equipment to the Hotel Hendry in Fort Myers, hoping that by now Dr. Worthington had received a telegram from Mr. Flagler. Fortunately the train to Palatka was scheduled to leave before Aunt Sarah’s train headed north. She had asked Mr. Bolton to meet her on the train.
Deceiving Aunt Sarah was hateful. The dear lady had been so kind and patient, but there was no way for her aunt to allow her niece to go off on her own with a male escort. In the note she planned to leave at the hotel desk at the last minute, she thanked Aunt Sarah for accompanying her to Florida, apologized for running away, and explained her reasons.
The next morning she told her aunt that she wanted to say good-bye to a few friends and thereby needed to take a separate carriage to the railway depot.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Aunt Sarah. “This is the strangest thing. I received a letter from your father, and in it he included a check for you for twenty-five dollars. Without any further explanation he said the check was for your allowance. Also, this telegram came for you last night.”
“Maybe Papa has come around to accept my decision about Mr. Cushing,” she said as she opened the telegram.
ELIZABETH.
SINCE YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF HANDLING YOUR INHERITANCE FROM HUBERT JACKSON, I HAVE ARRANGED TO BECOME TRUSTEE OF YOUR ACCOUNT UNTIL YOU CAN PROVE YOU HAVE RETURNED TO YOUR SENSES. I WILL SEND YOU A MONTHLY ALLOWANCE OF TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS THROUGH YOUR AUNT SARAH.
WALTER HARRISON SPRAGUE
She numbly handed the telegram to her aunt. “Oh! Aunt Sarah! How could he do this? It’s my money, and I’m of age.”
“Probably it was very easy, dear. All he had to do, I suppose, was convince a friendly judge at his club that you are incompetent and have himself named as your guardian.”
“By ‘returning to my senses,’ he means when I agree to marry Edward Cushing.”
Aunt Sarah sighed. “Yes. In all my born days I’ve never heard of such a despicable act. I’m ashamed to say he’s my brother.”
“What am I to do now?” She collapsed into a chair, unable to stop the tears. “I can’t afford to complete my master’s thesis. I can’t travel on twenty-five dollars a month.” She realized that Edward Cushing’s expected arrival the following day was no coincidence and felt the walls closing in around her. The one hundred dollars she had loaned to Mr. Bolton had left her almost penniless and stranded without being able to tap her inheritance.
Her aunt sat down beside her. “I have money, dear. Not a lot of it, but I can make you a loan until all this is straightened out.”
“I will not agree to marry Mr. Cushing.”
“I know. I can write you a check for four hundred dollars. If you need more, I will be able to send it to you wherever you may be. Send me a letter at Arlington Street telling me where you are, and I’ll keep your secret.”
She looked up. Aunt Sarah was smiling. Her aunt knew. “Aunt Sarah, I didn’t want to deceive you.”
“I know, dear. During unusual times a body has to do unusual things. It’s better that I know nothing more. But I will see to it that your third trunk is shipped back to Boston.”
She stood and hugged her aunt.
After departing from breakfast early, she picked up her valise and took a carriage to the train. She boarded a sooty car like the one they had ridden to Palatka one week earlier. Mr. Bolton must be in the other car and would come searching for her once the train was moving.
Nervously waiting for the train to start, she looked out the window, half expecting that Aunt Sarah had changed her mind and was coming after her. She breathed a sigh of relief as the train jerked forward. Mr. Bolton was not among the other passengers in this car. One row behind her on the opposite side sat an older man, mostly bald, whose remaining hair and mustache were a reddish-gray. He was staring at her and did not look away when she noticed. Wishing Mr. Bolton was already beside her she placed her valise on the seat to prevent a stranger from sitting there.
She reached into the valise for The Biography of Charles Darwin to hold as if reading. She hoped to look nonchalant. She had started the book at the hotel. Her hand closed around