The Diamond Waterfall Read Online Free PDF Page A

hinted at some connection between the heroine and Lily.
    INTERVIEWER: Miss Greene, is it true that you know perhaps, a little, about the life of a shopgirl? That your part is not
all
acting—
    ME
(coldly):
I have never served in a flower shop if that is your suggestion —my father owns a chain…. His daughter would hardly expect to stand behind the counter….
    INTERVIEWER
(hastily collecting notes together):
There is, has been, a break with your family—now happily mended, I understand. Perhaps you could tell our readers a little about your early life? You ran away to go on the stage—
    ME: Yes. My father forbade … Since I have done well, he is quite proud …
    INTERVIEWER: Your family? You said a brother, two sisters?
    ME: Yes, one sister lives at home. She is unmarried. My brother works for my father.
    INTERVIEWER: And the other sister?
    ME: Married. With children …
    And I hastily changed the subject. I had expected the cock to crow, that day. It was as if I had denied Daisy and Joszef. Even Harry a little.
    There was a photograph of Daisy on the table in her theater dressing room. Daisy from the Wycliffe Avenue days. She would have been ashamed to have displayed the present-day Daisy. (Yes, I send her what money I can, and whatever I send, feel always that I should send more.) She did not like to admit that she was embarrassed by her sister. Moving upward, how could she not be dragged down by the truth about Daisy? (For that, she thought,
I hate myself.)
Yet she continued to keep on her table the photograph which told so little. Only that Daisy had once been far prettier than she….
    What she wanted was to send Daisy’s whole family to America. With enough to set themselves up. (I have heard too many tales of immigrants’ early days—their second state worse than their first.) If, when, Edmund and she were married, it would be easy—I shall have only to ask. He will help. For he has a kind heart…. But first, she thought, I have to tell him. And that I do not look forward to. … I have become a snob.
    The truth was that Daisy had absolutely, but absolutely, lost her looks. Her figure, with its dragged-down look, her colorless, drawn skin—once pink and white. And Joszef, the last time seen: receding hairline, dark velvety eyes bloodshot and anxious. She could not have believed ten years could so alter two people.
    Yet in everything that really mattered, their concern was always for each other—and of course the children. Two sons, two daughters, born in less thansix years, brought up in simple surroundings with no help. Poor Daisy, disapproved of from both sides (for Joszef’s family had still not come around, though she had adopted their religion).
    The eldest was little Joe, then Anna, Sara, Ruth. Any money Lily gave went straight into their mouths and onto their backs. Or into the small money box that each child had. Harry told her:
    â€œDaisy says that
their
time, it’s over…. But the little ones are to have, one day, the best…. And Lily, as soon as I’m rich—they
shall—”
    Dear Harry. So carefully dressed when he came to applaud me and, with money given by Dad, to take me out to Simpson’s. Already becoming, just a little, the person Dad wanted him to be.
    All those years ago, Harry had suffered on her account. She only learned the details now:
    â€œâ€¦ I didn’t know a lad could be so black and blue. … He hadn’t the truth out of me for going on three days. Til have it, I
will
—’ he kept saying. … He was that certain I knew something…. But he never made to go after you at all. Every day it was If she’s expecting I’ll rescue her off the streets …’ Ma was worried, though….”
    And how Dad had punished him.
    â€œThe thrashings, Lily—they weren’t much. It was the disgrace—Ethel and Ma not so much as allowed to speak to me.