The next morning, Maggie was sent off for her exam and final day of school with many good wishes and prayers. As the high school had already finished its academic year a week previously, Robert joined his parents on a trip to Treeland's General Store. Della elected to stay home, and, in the spirit of further reconciliation with her little sister, began to fix her a special dinner for when she arrived home to begin her summer vacation.
She had just started mixing the dry ingredients for a cake when the phone rang. She reached for the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Is Miss Della Street there, by any chance?" a male voice asked.
"Speaking," Della absentmindedly answered, still mentally calculating how many teaspoons of baking soda she would need to put in the batter if she were doubling the recipe.
The character of the voice at the other end of the line changed dramatically with his next words. Notes of panic and relief were clearly audible in his tone.
"Della? Is it really you?"
It was then that she realized who the caller was. Instantly, she felt a sharp stab in her chest.
"Pe – Mr. Mason," she gasped out. Grasping the receiver with both hands, she glanced through the window at the empty driveway, and felt beyond grateful that his phone call should have come through when she was home alone.
"Thank God! Are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine," she said in a measured voice, doing her utmost to keep her wild emotions in check.
"Is your family alright? No one has died, gotten hurt?"
"Everyone is fine," she replied.
"Then why did you resign and leave town like you did? I've been worried out of my mind all morning! I have Paul and his operatives practically tearing Los Angeles apart, looking for you. I've called every friend you've had here, and all they could tell me was that they got a short postcard from you saying that you were moving away, but none of them knew your new address. From what little you've said of your family, I gathered you were not very close to them, but I thought I would call your parents' house on the off chance that-"
"Thank you for your concern, sir," Della interrupted. She could not bear to hear any more. Perry's concern for her was touching, but it was not enough. And unless she could have his whole heart, like Isabella Scalding did, every word he spoke to her was a painful reminder of how great a man she had lost to another. "But we are all perfectly alright. I am sorry to have worried you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some things I need to do, and I am sure that you are busy as well."
"Gracious, Della, there definitely is more that we have to say to each other! After three years of working together, you surely did not expect that I would walk into my office, find my law clerk sitting at my secretary's desk, and accept the three-sentence resignation letter he handed me from her without question?" He paused for a second, but Della remained silent. He added, "I realize that this is no conversation for a phone call. I will drive up to Treeland today and-"
"NO!" Della shrieked. "Absolutely not. Mr. Mason, there is nothing that needs to be said. A secretary – any working girl – has the right to resign her position whenever she sees fit. Please spare yourself the trip."
"Della, something is obviously not right, and it has to be cleared up. I am driving to Treeland as soon as the garage can bring my car around."
"Mr. Mason, let me be clear. Unless you, right now, give me your word that you will not come to Treeland and will not attempt to contact me further in any way, I am leaving this town within the hour. By the time you get here, I will be long gone. I just moved once, and I would truly appreciate not having to move again."
"You want me to believe that everything is well, but that you refuse to see me?" Perry asked suspiciously. "Della, you are not in any trouble, are you? Are you being held there against your will? Blackmailed?"
"No, of course not." Della snapped, her patience wearing thin. Why did the man have to pretend to be so gallant? Why could he not just accept the resignation that she had given him – the resignation he had been planning to ask for anyway – and call it a day? "No one here knows that I worked for you, and I would like to keep it that way. I wish to enjoy the simple things in life and just be part of the Street family, and I do not care to spend the rest of my life being asked to tell my family and neighbors stories about the famous Mr. Perry Mason!"
"Is that part of your history so dreadful to you?" the attorney asked, a bit of pain apparent in his voice.
Della sighed in exasperation. Did this man have nothing better to do than to toy with her heart? Shouldn't he be wooing Miss Scalding, rather than getting on her nerves? She decided to put an end to his playacting, once and for all.
"Mr. Mason, may I remind you that you are not in court at present, and therefore, there is no need for bluffing. I am fully aware that you were planning to fire me in the near future, so there is no reason for you to pretend to be surprised or displeased by my resignation. And now, if you will excuse me-"
"Why should I wish to fire the best legal secretary in Los Angeles?" Perry incredulously cut in. "A lawyer would have to be mad to willingly let you go!"
"Men have made worst mistakes in the past." Della retorted.
The silence on the other end of the line was deafening.
Although she had finally seemed to have gotten the upper hand in their argument, Della's sixth sense, honed by years of watching Perry think, made her skin unpleasantly crawl. She could almost feel his mind turning. And she vaguely suspected that in her last statement, she had made some sort of fatal mistake that would allow him to start getting at the truth.
Indeed, her last utterance had thrown Perry off-guard. They had been purportedly arguing about her position as secretary. Why, then, had Della not used the words 'employer' or 'boss' when she said that others had made worse mistakes in the past? Why had she decided to, at least subconsciously, classify him as a 'man', in that statement?
His mind churning, he began to put together the pieces of what Gertie and Carl Jackson had told him of Della's resignation and departure from the office. Jackson had mentioned that Mr. Garner had asked for his property deed back, and that Della had supplied it shortly before she announced her decision to quit. At first, in his fear for Della's safety, Perry Mason had brushed that small detail aside and nearly forgotten it. But now, he remembered where that property deed had been.
"Della, Mr. Jackson informed me that you went to my apartment and retrieved Mr. Garner's property deed for him the day that you resigned."
"That is correct," she said, stiffly.
"By any chance, did you take a look at any of the other papers on my desk at home while you were there?"
"Why? Is anything missing?" she retorted defensively.
"No, but you have not answered my question, Miss Street. Did you look at any other papers on my desk?" Perry Mason relentlessly cross-examined.
"I did not intend to."
"But did you?"
"I might have glanced at a few things accidentally," Della replied uncomfortably. She wished that she had the courage to slam the phone receiver down and end the conversation, but she knew that he would call again if she did – or worse, come to Treeland.
"And would any of the things you accidentally learned have had anything to do with your leaving my employ?"
There it was. As usual, he had figured it out. She braced herself, grateful only that he could not see the tears silently running down her cheeks, and in a staccato tone, said:
"Yes. With all due respect, if you wish to keep certain things private, perhaps in the future you should leave them under lock and key, rather than mixing them up with your official papers, especially when you know that certain staff members have access to your apartment. Now that you know that I know, I congratulate you wholeheartedly, Mr. Mason. Isabella Scalding is a lovely creature. And I fully understand why you decided to discharge me, under the circumstances. I wish you every happiness, and now, for the final time, ask that you would let me go back to my work."
"Della!" He exclaimed in the softest, most desperate, and most horrified tone that she had ever heard him use. "Della, please listen to me. I was not planning to tell you this over the telephone, but since you won't let me see you, a phone call will have to do." She heard him take a deep, nervous breath. "That letter from my mother contained a dreadful mistake. I did call her, yes, and I told her that I was in love, and I asked her to send me my grandmother's ring. When she asked me to confide in her and tell her the name of the woman whom I loved, my mother, who is slightly hard of hearing, thought I had said 'Bella'. She took it upon herself to conclude that the lady's full name was Isabella. But I had not said 'Bella'. I told her that I loved a 'Della'. And you, Miss Street, are the only 'Della' that I know."
Her legs could not support her. They gave out, and she sank down heavily upon the nearest kitchen stool.
"Perry!" she cried out, clutching her chest, for her heart was pounding so quickly that she feared that it might stop. "Do you mean that you-"
"That I was planning to propose to you? Of course! I love you more than my life, Della Street! You are the only woman who could ever make me happy!"
Della again had to hold the receiver with both hands, because they were trembling so violently that one of them would be unequal to the task. After half a minute of gasping for breath, she finally managed to choke out:
"But all those disappearances of yours from the office…shooing me away at the end of the workday…and hiring Carl Jackson…I thought that you did not want to be around me anymore."
"My dear girl! Of course not! I simply thought that it was high time that I stopped working you to exhaustion."
"But why, after all this time, should you suddenly become so concerned about my working hours?"
"Because I finally realized what a brute I had been. About two months ago, after we got back to the office after winning the Belmont case, I started dictating my responses to all the correspondence which had piled up during it. Before I realized, it was midnight and I found that you had fallen sound asleep on the couch while I had droned on, your steno pencil and notepad lying beside you. I knew that I ought to wake you and take you home, but instead I sank down into an armchair, never taking my eyes off of your beautiful, peaceful face. All the tender thoughts and feelings I had been vaguely aware of for the past three years crystallized in that moment, and I realized that I loved you with my whole heart. A strong desire to marry you and be with you for each and every moment till my dying breath rose up in my soul. In the next minute, however, I found myself wondering how I could ever convince you that I could be a kind, considerate husband and father if I was not even a sensitive employer. There you were, on a Friday night, after a long week in court, taking dictation from me and collapsing from weariness on an office couch when all the other single women in Los Angeles were either in their beds asleep or enjoying themselves downtown. I made up my mind right then and there to make sure you kept more reasonable working hours, whatever the inconvenience was to myself."
"That would explain your hiring a law clerk and hurrying me away at the end of the day, but what about all the times you disappeared from the office?"
"I was visiting jewelry stores and fancy restaurants, trying to find the perfect engagement ring and venue to propose in. At last, I decided that my grandmother's heirloom ring would be most suitable for the occasion after all, and asked my mother to send it along – and I reserved a private dining room with a balcony at The Brown Derby on July Fourth. I thought that fireworks over the Los Angeles skyline would make a decent backdrop to what I was hoping and praying would be a very memorable moment in our lives."
"Oh Perry!" Della murmured. The mere description of such a romantic evening with him overwhelmed her. This was what she had been running away from! "I…I hadn't the slightest idea! Dare I suppose that the sandstone mansion in Beverly Hills was for me, as well?"
"Yes, darling. I attended a party there some years ago, and I was immediately struck by the architecture, the location, and the coziness of the place. The moment I heard it was up for sale I knew that it would not remain on the market long, but as I had no understanding with you yet, it put me in quite a quandary. If you consented to make me the happiest man in the world, after all, it would be vital that you liked my new abode since it would soon be your home too. At the same time, I did not want to spoil my plans for an unforgettable evening by throwing together a hasty proposal just so we could buy the house before someone else did. I also did not want to tell you outright that I meant to buy it for myself, because that would have immediately tipped you off that something odd was afoot, since I barely spend time in my apartment some weeks; what excuse could I have for suddenly needing a twenty-room mansion unless I was planning to start a family? It may have been unfair of me, but I decided to subpoena your opinion on the property without explaining the purpose behind it – I was planning to surprise you with the news of my secret purchase after we were engaged. I am so sorry that I upset you by refusing to speak about it that night you asked me to explain our visit there, but there was no way that I was going to reveal what plans I had for that house in front of Paul and my client. I…I hope you don't think that I was too presumptuous to purchase it before you consented to be my wife."
"Perry, I could not be angry with you at this moment if I tried," Della said, wiping away the tears of joy which had started copiously falling from her eyes in lieu of the grieving ones. Perry was calling her 'darling'. He loved her! She only feared that she would wake up and find that it was all a lovely dream. "You will never know how jealous I was of Isabella, how I envied her."
"My poor, poor Della! Forgive me – I was only trying to surprise you with a beautiful declaration of love. I never dreamed that you would misinterpret everything in this way and run away."
"I know, Perry – it's not your fault. I am also to blame. I should not have read your private correspondence."
"And I should have considered the possibility that you might go to my apartment and see it. After I had called my mother and clarified the name of my beloved for her, however, I simply gave the letter no further thought and foolishly left it on my desk. From now on, however, you can pry into anything you like. I will have no further secrets from you…with the possible exception of some diamond bracelets or necklaces which I will hide away until your birthday or Christmas comes around." Della laughed shakily, still recovering from so much crying. "My precious girl, I needn't stay away from Treeland now, do I? I can come and see you, and be happy?"
"Yes, of course, Perry!" Della exclaimed. "I can't wait to be with you!"
She heard him getting up from his chair.
"I'll be there in three hours, my love."
"Three – no, Perry, it's an eight-hour drive! I don't want you speeding and killing yourself on the freeway-"
"I promise to travel safely, sweetheart. I'll see you very, very soon."
"I'll be here, my dear Perry," she murmured lovingly.
Well, Della's and Perry's misunderstanding is cleared up! A shout-out to all of you who figured out that it WAS a misunderstanding - particularly to A Carwile, who figured out that Perry's mother might have misheard 'Della' as 'Bella'!
Now...Della's family (particularly Maggie) is in for the shock of their lives!
Please review!