White Orchids (Wainwright Duology #1)

Camilla Chrystie was losing hope. She'd had an accident while rushing to get medicine for her beloved mother, who was dangerously ill. Then, miraculously, a handsome and wealthy playboy had offered Camilla his help. But when they had joined together in a desperate effort to save Camilla's mother, they had found themselves drawn into a friendship that surprised them both.

Touched and warmed by their time together, Camilla is soon caught in yet another dilemma. Should she trust the man's solemn words of friendship - and love - even though he has returned to his world of wealth and seemingly forgotten about her completely? Was what they shared real, or is she being foolish to believe his assertion that they could find a true and lasting love together?

Original Publisher: J.B. Lippincott Company
Original Year of Publication: 1935 [1989 reprint]
Page Count: 288

I find myself reaching for GLH books when I'm having an especially stressful period of time, because they are almost aggressively quiet and calm reads. I definitely needed that right now, and this book fit the bill.

Camilla Chrystie is rushing off one evening to pick up medicine for her sick mother when she's in a car accident in the middle of an intersection. It just so happened that Jeffrey Wainwright was in the car behind her, witnessed the event, and went over to help. Stunned that Camilla isn't hurt (her car rolled several times), he takes pity on her and assists her in running her desperate errand. He accompanies her back to the crumbling home where she lives and meets with the doctor, and basically provides any assistance he can. Camilla is grateful, but is more worried about her mother than anything else. Jeff ends up staying overnight and is a very calming anchor in Camilla's storm.

Mrs. Chrystie pulls through the night, the doctor suggests hiring a nurse (Miss York), and Jeff basically kinda hangs around and helps out as best he can, given that he is the eldest son of a multimillionaire, putting around a shabby genteel bedsit. He gives Camilla a bouquet of the titular white orchids, as much to not let them go to waste as anything else. Camilla feels guilty for taking another woman's flowers (this man is so gorgeous and dressed in evening wear, so of course he has another woman), but she and her mother enjoy them anyway.

Jeff is charmed by Camilla's quiet dignity, and follows up on Mrs. Chrystie's health, and eventually wheedles a date with Camilla in spite of all of her objections (her mother needs her/she has nothing to wear to a fancy dinner/they are from two different worlds, etc). Camilla thoroughly enjoys herself on the date - even when they run into the Other Woman - and especially enjoys the kiss they share on her doorstep, though she spends most of the next 200 pages beating herself up for that enjoyment.

Camilla realizes that more than mere wealth/class separates Jeffrey and herself - she is a born-again Christian and he very obviously is not, nice though he is. She does her best to forget him, especially when he leaves town to take his mother to Florida for the winter. She spends a lot of time thinking about him, the kiss, and the gulf of differences between them.

Jeffrey is smitten, intrigued by what Camilla could've possibly meant about being "born again" (the Other Woman broke into their conversation at that point), and spends most of his time in Florida thinking about Camilla and re-evaluating his life. He even writes to Camilla, but without knowing his return date, there's little he can do, beyond thinking.

The Other Woman, Stephanie Varrell, is a typical GLH villainess: she's physically beautiful, with piercing eyes and a tendency to bite her blood-red lips. She is selfish, shallow, callous, cruel, and wants nothing more than to keep The Hero (Jeffrey) away from The Heroine (Camilla) because she has first dibs on him. In this case, it's much worse, because there is a superficial resemblance between Stephanie and Camilla, so Stephanie spends a lot of time wondering how he could possibly prefer Camilla to herself.

Jeffrey was on his way to a dinner that Stephanie was hosting when he stopped to help Camilla, and he has pulled away from Stephanie ever since. She's determined to snap her fingers and bring him to heel, far more interested in playing games of jealousy than being a decent person. Stephanie follows Jeffrey to Florida, steals the letter he wrote to Camilla and burns it, and when Jeffrey disappears without explanation, Stephanie is so afraid that he's running back to Camilla that she buys the building where Camilla and her mother are living and has it demolished(!!) so that, on the off chance that he isn't looking for her now, he'll never be able to find her. Talk about evil!

Jeff and Camilla are separated for months. Camilla sees paparazzi pictures of Jeff and Stephanie romping around on the beach, so she's determined to move on with her life, basically figuring that she's being punished for enjoying that chaste little goodnight kiss. Camilla's boss starts to take an especial interest in her, in the guise of her making over her coworker Marietta, but Camilla is so oblivious that she thinks the boss is just being extra nice to them. She throws herself into Marietta's makeover with gusto and lets the boss to her to lunch, then dinner, then home to meet her mother.

Down in FL, Jeff is discovering the meaning of born-again Christianity, which he is taking to with gusto, because now he knows the key to his future with Camilla. Once he discovers this, he's off to find his lady love again and marry her, because there are no differences between them anymore!

For the most part, I liked this story. It felt a bit overly long (I could've really done without the proselytizing), but moved at a decent pace. The ending was rather rushed (Jeffrey indeed searches for Camilla for weeks after discovering her only known address literally doesn't exist anymore - only to meet her in a chance encounter at the flower shop where he bought the original white orchids. It is NEVER mentioned before this point that either one of them goes to the shop to reminisce about their brief friendship/date/kiss until this point, but apparently they do). I liked the characters, especially Mrs. Chrystie and Miss York, the nurse-turned-housemate. Jeffrey was an appealing hero. He's already a good dude, even without the evangelical Christianity gilding. Camilla was an interesting mixture of being completely oblivious and pretty judgmental; she goes on a long rant that her married boss's interest in her is "unnatural" and that he has "no right to love her," etc. She also judges Jeffrey for drinking socially. It's like - if the world doesn't conform to her narrow standards of Christian morality, she feels really free to judge them and preach at them. Hmm, no thank you. Born-again Christianity is not my bag, but mercifully it's not overpowering here. Jeffrey's journey to God is low-key and straightforward, and the scene where he dumps Stephanie for good is very satisfying.

All in all, though, this was a good read that did exactly what I needed for it to do, for me.

⭐⭐⭐