Crimson Roses (21 page)

Softly she trod the deep carpet of the hallway and went down the steps to her chair, and there, yes, there lay
two roses!
Two wonderful, great, crimson buds! There had never been two before.

She looked hurriedly around. There was no one on that floor yet and no one in the audience room that she could see from where she stood, except a man up in the top box next to the stage. He was almost hidden by the heavy crimson hangings of the box, and he seemed to be studying the fresco work of the ceiling through an opera glass. He seemed as far away from her as a man on Mars might be. She stooped and caught the rosebuds to her face and kissed them and whispered, “Oh, you dear things. You
dear
things! You lasted all the way through, didn’t you?”

With a quick glance behind her to be sure no one had come in yet, and with the roses still caught to her heart, she made a tiny, graceful curtsey and a wave of her free hand toward the great empty room, whispering softly, “I thank you! I thank you!” It seemed as if her full heart must give some expression to her feelings; and, as she knew no one to thank, she threw her little grateful rejoicing out into the wide universe, trusting that it would somehow be brought home to its rightful owner.

Then she nestled down quietly in her seat with the roses fastened in her dress. They seemed to soothe away all the pain of the past weeks with their soft, cool fragrance and make her happy again. At least she would forget all her perplexities for this one night and enjoy everything to the full. She had ceased to wonder where they came from. They were the more beautiful that they were a mystery. She shrank from the thought of finding out their donor, lest it should bring her disappointment of some kind.

She sat in a dream of joy as one by one the people stole in and the orchestra began to tune their instruments. It seemed to her as if this, too, were a part of the beauty of the evening, as if these magicians of harmonies were calling together one by one each note and melody, like sweet, reluctant spirits that together were presently to bring forth divine harmonies.

She took little notice of anyone around her that night. The roses and the music were enough. She wanted to take it all in and seal it up for memory’s serving in the days of music famine that were almost upon her.

With the little black hat in her lap and the deep, burning roses nestling on her chest, where their glow was reflected upon the whiteness of her sweet face, she sat with closed eyes and shapely dark head covered with shining ripples, leaning back against the crimson of the high-backed chair. She listened as if she were out in a tide of melody, floating, floating with the melody where it would, her soul palpitating, quivering, feeling every suggestion the music conveyed, seeing every fair picture that it carried on its breath.

Down in a box below sat Isabel Cresson, attired in a costly gown, several diamonds easily visible. She was gazing through an exquisitely mounted pair of opera glasses. She was cross with all the people who sat around her, for she had searched every spot in the floor and lower balcony for a certain man and found him not; and then she had turned her attention reluctantly to the rest of the house and found him not, because a broad woman with a towering hat completely hid him from her view. But she found with her powerful lenses the vision of a sweet face leaning back and listening with closed eyes, above two exquisite crimson rosebuds. Rosebuds that she knew could be found only at the best florists. It vexed her beyond endurance, and she heard not a note of that whole wonderful concert. Perhaps, however, she had not come to listen. For she had been most uneasy in her mind ever since the roadhouse episode. Just how much did Jefferson Lyman see in that inner room? Did he know she had been there? She would have given her best diamond to find out.

The last sweet note died away, and the musicians had stolen out one by one before Marion put on her hat with a happy sigh and turned to go, taking a deep breath of her roses as she bent her head.

Then she raised her eyes, and there he stood, tall and smiling before her, just in front of the chair where the man had sat that she had noticed once or twice; and with a gasp of astonishment, she suddenly realized that it had been him all the time.

And she had wondered who it was he resembled!

He smiled down into her eyes with that deep understanding that made her heart quiver with a glad response and caused her to forget all her nice little resolutions and phrases.

He was just a part of the wonder of it all that night, and the air was still full of the music that he and she had both been in and lived through and understood. Its heartbreaks and its ecstasies were their common experience, and there could be no question of their right to talk it over and feel anew the thrill of the evening’s pleasure.

“It was without a flaw tonight, was it not?” he said as he bent courteously to assist her up the steps, and somehow that low-spoken sentence seemed to bring all the symphony nights into one and make them theirs. She forgot she had not meant to let him take her home again.

They were talking of the music, comparing one selection with another, calling attention to the exquisite emotion of one passage or the magnificent climax of another; and so, before Marion had realized it, they were on her shabby doorstep, and all the words she had planned were left unsaid.

“I want to explain about last Tuesday,” she said earnestly. “I did not know those awful people nor where I was going. I got a telephone message that Mrs. Stewart wanted me to chaperone a Christian Endeavor party and they would call for me.”

He looked at her with something in his eyes that thrilled her. “Of course,” said he, “I understood as soon as I saw who they were. There ought to be some way to bring them to justice, but let’s forget them for the present.

“Is it ever possible for you to get away from the store on Saturday afternoons?” It was the first time he had hinted that he knew she was in the store. He knew, then, that she had to work for her living!

“Why—I—yes, I suppose I could,” she found herself saying. “Yes, I think I could. I haven’t asked any time off; we are entitled to a few days during the year.”

“Well, then suppose you try for next Saturday afternoon. I have tickets for a recital that I am sure you will enjoy. It promises to be far finer than anything we have had among the soloists this winter. It is Paderewski, the great pianist. Have you ever heard him?”

“Oh!” She caught her breath. “Oh, no! I have never heard him, but I have read of him a great many times. He is very wonderful, more than all the others, isn’t he? You have heard him?”

“Yes,” he said smiling. “I have heard him, here and abroad; and I think he is the greatest. There are people who criticize him, but then there are those who would criticize that!” He waved his hand toward the brilliant bit of night that hung over the street, a wonderful, dark azure path between the rows of tall houses, luminous with a glorious silver moon and studded with myriads of stars.

She looked up and understood and then met his glance with delighted comprehension. She knew that he felt she would understand.

“Oh, thank you!” she said. “I hope I can get away. It would be the greatest pleasure I can think of to hear him.”

He looked into the depths of her eyes for an instant and exulted in their starry shine. She seemed so utterly sweet and natural.

“Then shall we arrange for it, unless I hear from you that you cannot get away?” he asked. “And may I call for you here, or will some other place be more convenient?”

“I could not get away until the last minute,” she said thoughtfully. “There would not be time to come home, I’m afraid; and, dear me! I’ll not be very fine to go to a concert straight from the store without a chance to freshen up.”

“You always look nice,” he said admiringly. “Then suppose I meet you in the Chestnut Street waiting room at half past two. Will that be quite convenient, or is there some other place you would prefer?”

Before she realized it was all settled, he was gone, and she was on her way up to the little room at the top of the house.

But somehow in spite of her happiness over her coming pleasure, there seemed to be an undertone of self-accusation in her heart. She had not revealed her station in life to him thoroughly, and she ought to have done so. Even though he did know she was working in a store for the present, he might think it was on account of some sudden reverse of fortune, and that because Mr. Radnor had introduced her among other girls she must necessarily have come of a fine old family and be a girl of education and refinement. The dull old wallpaper on the hall seemed to cry out “Shame!” to her as she passed by; the very cheap pine stair banisters mocked her with their bony spindles and reminded her that he thought her more than she was, and she had not undeceived him.

“He has not been in this shabby house,” they seemed to say. “He does not know how you live in poverty. If he could see us all as we are—we, your surroundings—he would never be inviting you to go to grand concerts. He will only turn your head and make you discontented, and then when he found out
—when he finds out
—WHEN HE FINDS OUT!” They fairly shouted it through the keyhole at her as she shut her door sharply and lighted her gas, trying to solace her troubled mind with a glimpse of the dainty refuge she had made.

She tried to forget these things in looking at her roses as she unpinned them before her glass and laid them tenderly on the white bedspread.

“You dears!” she said, “if you could only last till next Saturday, but you won’t. And you’re the very last. There’ll be no more chances for you anymore. Bless the dear old lady, whoever she is.” She had settled it long ago that the donor of the roses was a dear old lady with white hair, like the one who sat in the balcony below and sometimes looked up in her direction, and who probably sent her servant up to leave the rose in her seat. She never troubled anymore to explain just how or why. It was like a sweet fairy tale that one took on faith. She told herself, “The dear old lady will never know where to find me anymore: at least, unless I get the same seat next year; and I’m afraid that is not possible, for they told me that former holder wanted it again next year. Perhaps, now, perhaps—that’s an idea. What if somebody has been putting flowers in that former owner’s seat and doesn’t know she is gone away? Maybe they have been meant for her all the time. Well, she was off to Europe or somewhere, and I have enjoyed the roses for her. If I had not, they might have withered unnoticed. But isn’t it great, great,
great
that I’m to hear the real Pader—how
did
he pronounce that name? I wonder? I must listen when he speaks it again and remember just how it was.”

Thus communing with herself she managed to silence for a time the voices of her poverty that were crying out against her. But when she was alone upon her pillow in the dark, once more her conscience arose and reminded her that she did not know a thing about this stranger except that he was kind. Of course, Mr. Radnor had introduced him, and also the minister, who had seemed very fond of him, but they did not expect her to go trailing off everywhere with him, and mercy—he might be married! Married men nowadays did sometimes pay attention to girls. But she was not that kind of a girl. She resolved that she would tell him all about herself plainly the next time she saw him. Perhaps it would be after church tomorrow night; and, if it was, she would be brave and tell him quickly before he could make her fear to lose the joy of that wonderful concert.

She might, of course, wait for just this one more great pleasure; to go to a real concert with a man like that would be a thing to remember all one’s life. But if one took a forbidden pleasure, what could there be in the memory but shame and bitterness?

There was no way but to tell him all about it at once. If he did not come to church Sunday evening, perhaps she ought to write him a note and decline to go to the concert. But then that would seem to be making so much of the whole matter, as if she were taking his small attentions too seriously. What should she do? Oh for her dear father to advise her! He had not been highly educated, nor much used to the ways of the world, but somehow he had always seemed to possess a keen sense to know what to do on every occasion; and his love for his one daughter had made him highly sensitive to help her on all occasions.