Crimson Roses (12 page)

She watched people all the afternoon, when she was not actually employed, and studied her own clothing, thinking how she might improve it. She had not realized how out of date she had allowed herself to get while she was shut up in the house. Perhaps that was the reason those girls in the church had looked at her so scornfully. Well, that was something that must be remedied. Everyone ought to be as good looking and fittingly clad as was possible under their circumstances, and there were things she certainly could do if she set about it to remedy her defects, although she had no intention of painting her lips or wearing earrings or making her dresses as short as those her new friend wore. Her own fine sense taught her better.

Following the innate guidance of her own artistic soul, the next day, when she had a few minutes off, she found her way to where the imported dresses were on display and hastily reviewed them. She selected three or four from the motley array that appealed to her as being modest and lovely and fulfilling all the lines of beauty and form and color that should be in a dress and studied them carefully.

That evening she sat up late by the light of her little gas jet sewing a deeper hem into her gown and laying a couple of pleats that brought it more into fashion’s subjection, and the result really did seem to justify her hard work.

It was lucky for her that she had fingers that could fashion almost anything she saw out of whatever material was put before her. Of course, she had little material with which to work and no money at all to buy any, but she managed to do wonders with her old dresses.

This occupation served two purposes. It gave a new interest to the first few days of loneliness, and it made her look much more like other girls. She resolved that as soon as she could conscientiously afford it she would buy herself one or two of the cheap, pretty little dresses that were for sale in the basement. As an employee she could get a discount, so it would not cost so very much, and, of course, she must not look dowdy.

She learned to dress her hair, too, in a more modern way, and it was wonderful how attractive it was.

“Oh, I like your hair, Marion Warren,” cried out Gladys Carr the first morning she appeared with it waved away from her face, piled high in the back, and fastened with an old tortoise-shell hairpin of her mother’s. “Oh, isn’t that just precious, girls! Look at her! Say, isn’t that the cat’s?”

Marion colored a little at the expression of her friend’s interest, but was encouraged and made to feel less shy by the kindly approval of the other girls.

Gladys gave her another hint about lipstick and rouge that day, but she shook her head decidedly.

“No, Gladys, I don’t like it,” she said firmly. “I’ll never do it. It doesn’t seem nice to me. And excuse me, but really it doesn’t even seem beautiful. It looks so unnatural. It really seems kind of ghastly, just as if a person had died and had been painted up to look like life. I can’t bear those dead whites and vivid reds, nor the Indian colors, either. You never saw a living soul look like that. You can’t imitate pink and white health; it has to grow. I’m going to take some exercises at night, perhaps take some walks and breathing exercises and see if I can’t get some real pink in my cheeks, but if I don’t I’m not going to paint it on!”

“My soul!” said Gladys Carr, looking at her earnestly. “You’re awful strange, but yer nice. I b’leeve I like ya just as ya are! There ain’t many I’d say that to though, I can tell ya.”

Then, spying another girl passing out the door, she lifted up her voice and yelled.

“Say, Totty Frayer, was it you took my pencil off my counter this morning when I had my back turned getting’ that spool of silk? I’d lika know where ya got the nerve! I never done nothing like that ta you. I’d be pleased to have ya return it. I need that pencil. Get me?”

It was not many days before Marion began to feel more at home in the store and had other friends besides Gladys Carr. And little by little even the most flapperish flappers among her fellow workers began to be nice to her. For was she not unfailingly nice to them? She was always ready with a smile to stay after hours in the place of some girls who had a headache or wanted to go to a moving-picture show that evening and had to hurry home. She never complained when it was her turn to stay, and she would always cut short her precious lunch hour five minutes at the request of someone who wanted a bit more time and asked her to come back early. The ripples in her brown hair and tender lights in her brown eyes were pleasing to look upon and have about.

She was the kind of girl that men admired from a distance, yet not the kind they asked to go with them to the theater or presented with flowers and candy; nor did they dare joke with her. They respected her and let her alone. She made no advances and answered all their conversation shyly, and never thought of lingering about in their way. They thought she was above them, and she was. Nevertheless, she missed much pleasant companionship she might have had, and they missed her guiding presence, which might have been an inspiration to them if they had but understood.

So she passed in and out among them, handling her pretty ribbons, smiling cheerily always to customers and fellow workmen alike, eating her cheap meals gratefully, and hoarding her pennies most carefully.

She drank a good deal of milk; that was cheap, and it gave a pretty roundness to her cheeks and a clearness to her complexion that made her all the more attractive. It had been scarce at home since her father died; there were so many babies to drink milk that there had been very little left for Marion. Besides, Jennie told her she was too old to drink milk; that was children’s food, and it was extravagant for a grown person to drink it. After that Marion drank no more milk. But now it was the cheapest thing on the menu. A little bottle of rich, creamy milk and a dainty bundle of shredded-wheat biscuit or crackers done up in waxed paper made a cheap and attractive breakfast or supper.

Then it was a real relief to feel that when her day’s work was over her time was really her own. There were no little stockings to mend or dishes to wash or endless demands upon her precious evenings; and she might read to her heart’s delight. Sometimes she felt selfish in her joy over this; yet her conscience told her it was her right to have a little time to herself for improvement, and the books she chose were good and helpful ones, not always just for amusement. Biography, history, and stories were well blended in her self-prescribed course. She joined a summer class in English literature and took real pleasure in going further in the study that had been interrupted when her school days suddenly came to an end.

The summer drew on, and the days grew hotter. The little third-story room with its pretty dormer-windows was absolutely breathless. She kept the fact from her inner consciousness as long as possible, and then one stifling night when she slept but little, she acknowledged it to herself and accepted it along with the great loneliness that was gradually growing in her heart, and decided she was glad to be here anyway in spite of heat and solitude.

There were wonderful concerts in the department store, and sometimes the sound of them floated faintly as far as the ribbon-counter. Then it seemed that angels might be lingering above and watching over her work.

But the summer was long and the heat intense. Sometimes even her enthusiasm lagged, and her step grew less elastic. Shredded wheat and cheap dinners palled, and everything in the restaurant smelled alike. Cooking over gas was hot work, and trying to read in the tiny oven that her little top-floor room had become was impossible. She took one or two evening trolley rides to cool off, because the heat at home seemed unbearable; but the getting home alone late frightened her. She was timid about going out at night alone.

She might have had company among her acquaintances in the church, perhaps, but she was so far away now that she seldom went except on Sundays. And besides, the ones who would have appreciated her fine, sweet friendship did not know her and knew not what they missed; and the others would have voted her “slow.”

It was September when the symphony concerts were brought to her notice by the conversation that she overheard between two customers who had the same seats from year to year and were enthusiastic music lovers. This fired Marion with a desire to get a season ticket and go herself. Why had she not thought of it before?

She inquired about the sale of tickets and arranged to be among the first in line at the office the morning the sale began.

A young man who stood just behind her in the line watched her eager face as she asked questions about the seats. Her simple acknowledgment to the apathetic boy behind the ticket window that this was the first time she had attended the concerts and that she did not know how to choose her seat interested him. He felt like shaking the youth into a sense of his duty and was relieved when the girl quietly selected for herself one of the very best seats of those open for sale, an end chair on the middle aisle, about halfway up in the top gallery. As she counted out the dimes and quarters and a worn bill or two, the watcher somehow felt they were won with the girl’s life-blood, and her eager, speaking face told how much the tickets meant to her as she folded them into her small, cheap purse and slipped away from the rail. The man who followed her promptly bought a seat for the season one row up and across the aisle from the one she had taken, instead of the balcony seat he had intended to get. He was interested to see the look of this girl when she should hear her first symphony. Would it bear out the impression her face had already given him? It was an idle whim, but because it pleased him he followed it, even though it meant the extra climb to the highest gallery.

It was the night of the second symphony concert when the wonderful thing happened.

Chapter 7

M
arion had come early and was among the first to enter. She loved to watch the vast space blossom into light and life. It was a great world of its own, full of light and sound and beauty. It held her enchanted from the first moment. Tonight she had an old pair of opera glasses that her landlady had hunted out from among her relics of former days. She seemed pleased to let the girl have them, and Marion handled them carefully as if they had been gold set with precious jewels. As a matter of fact, they were covered with worn, faded purple velvet and looked exceedingly shabby and old-fashioned; but the wonders that they opened up to the girl were just as great as if they had been fine and new.

She climbed the great staircase and stole down the velvet-covered steps to her seat as if entering a sacred area. But she started and looked around when she came to her chair. The seat was turned down as if someone had been sitting there, while all the other seats were still turned up, awaiting their occupants. But the strangest thing of all was that on the seat lay a great long-stemmed rose, half open. It was one of those rare, dark crimsons whose shadows have hints of black velvet and whose lights glow like hidden fire. From out of its heart there stole a fragrance, subtle, heavenly, reminding one of gardens long ago, of rare old lace and lavender and fair, fine ladies of an ancient type.

Marion caught her breath in ecstasy and stooped as if the rose had been a little child, then looked around again to see to whom it might belong. But there was no one around except two elderly women away around the horseshoe circle at the end and a man on the other side, to whom obviously it could not belong. She had the whole middle section to herself just now, and the lights were not turned up yet to their full power.

Perhaps someone had mistaken his seat, and going away, had forgotten the flower and might be coming back for it in a moment. Surely no one would forget a bud so exquisite. She lifted it and breathed its fragrance, then looked furtively toward the elderly women. Finally she made her way over to the corner where the two women sat and asked whether they had lost a flower; but they looked at her coldly and answered, “No,” as if they thought her intruding. She went back to her seat, and, turning down the next chair, laid the rose carefully on it with many a tender look and touch and a wistful breath of its sweetness.