Crimson Roses (22 page)

Between her joy over the prospective pleasure and her worrying over this matter, she had a week of most intense excitement. Sometimes she thought she would go for this once and have her good time, telling him afterward. Once more could do no harm. And yet in spite of all her questionings she went steadily forward with her preparations.

Her problem was by no means solved by the fact that Lyman did not appear in church Sunday evening and that early Monday morning a note was brought to her door from him, saying that he had found urgent business awaiting him the evening before, which had called him away from the city immediately, not to return until Friday evening; but he hoped that she would arrange matters satisfactorily for the concert on Saturday, for he was counting on the pleasure of her company.

When she opened the envelope, her heart gave a wild throb of pleasure. It was so wonderful to be receiving notes like other girls, so marvelous that he cared to be kind to her!

Yet it troubled her and frightened her to think she cared so much. If her dear father were with her, she felt certain he would warn her against losing her heart to this man. It was out of the question that he could be her intimate friend, so far apart they were in everything. If her father had lived, and she could have gone on with her studies, it might have been possible in time that she could have been fitted to be a worthy friend of such a one.

She sighed and pressed back the tears that smarted in her eyes. She would not give in to discontent. She would take this one pleasure yet, this concert. It was too late now to stop it. He had given her no address except his home, and he was to be away all the week. It was not quite polite to send a refusal at the last minute when perhaps he could get no one else to accompany him, though of course he could probably always get good company. There was no sense in blinding herself; she might just as well admit that she was weak enough to want this one more real pleasure before she stopped altogether her friendliness with the only worthy man who had ever sought her out and seemed to care for her company. She would go to the concert, and then on the way home she would briefly and quietly tell him all about herself. That would end it. It was better ended before her whole life was spoiled with useless longing for a companionship that could never be hers. She must stop it before it was too late, and save herself.

Yet the tears that wet her pillow that night ought to have made her doubt whether it was not already too late.

That noon she took time from her lunch hour to hover around the remnant counters and make a few modest purchases, and that evening she began to evolve a charming little afternoon dress for herself modeled after one in the French department—a blouse from a remnant of silk and a bit of chiffon she had bought. Marion was skillful with her needle, and she had wonderful imported creations to copy. The dress was an exquisite triumph of art when completed and fit her admirably besides being most attractive.

Browsing around in the millinery department, she discovered a table of last year’s hats, and among them a very fine imported one whose brim was slightly damaged; and the price was merely nominal. The artist in the girl saw the possibilities in that hat. She bought it at once and that night remedied the defect by a deft bit of trimming. The result was most charming.

“If I only had some of those wonderful roses,” she sighed. “I should really look quite grand for once.” But of course there would be no more roses.

The new dress and the pretty hat went to the store the next morning, the dress in a small pasteboard box. Marion appeared in her place behind the counter in her plain dress as usual, and only her shining eyes like two stars and the soft flush on her cheek told that anything unusual was to happen that day.

About eleven o’clock there appeared at the ribbon counter a boy with a large box asking loudly for Miss Warren. Marion was making ribbon violets for a fussy old lady, patiently trying to please her, and did not notice the boy; but the other girls were not oblivious. They brought the box to her in great excitement.

“That’s the boy from Hortons!” said one girl. “Say M’rion Warren, you must have a swell friend to send you flowers from that place. Seems to me you keep it mighty quiet.”

But Marion only smiled at them and laid the box on the floor beside her. “Thank you,” she said, and went on making her violets quite as if she had expected this box, though her fingers were trembling and her face had grown white with excitement. Could it be that the box contained more roses? Could it be that someone really knew her and was sending them to her? Yes, it must be, for this was the second time they had come in a box and directly from a florist.

She had never been able to explain the other time, the day after she had come home in the rain and caught cold. But now she must face the question that she had been putting aside. Who could be sending her flowers?

It was someone who knew her actions, who cared when she was ill, and who knew she was going to a concert. No one knew that but her old landlady, who had happened up to the door while she was making her new dress. She had showed her the hat and dress and told her that a friend had invited her to go to a concert. But that poor old lady would never have thought of lovely roses, even if she had desired to do something pleasant; and she certainly never could have afforded them. What was Marion to think?

It had never occurred to her to connect the roses with her new friend. They were part of her life before he came into it, and of course he could not have sent them. She would have been too humble to think such a thing possible.

But the rest of the morning she worked in a tremor of delicious excitement. She slipped the box, unopened, under the lower shelf and went on with her ribbons, much to the disappointment of the other girls, who wanted a glimpse of what it contained. But she could not bear to open it before them all.

However, at half past one, when she was excused for the day, she hurried up to the privacy of the small dressing room set aside for employees; and, finding the box contained far more roses than she could possibly wear at once, she hurried back with her arms full of lovely buds and bestowed one on each of her comrades.

“I don’t care,” said one of the loudest-voiced of them all, after they had thanked her and she had slipped away again. “I don’t care! I think she’s just a sweet little thing, if she is awful quiet and private about herself. She deserves to have nice friends. She’s different somehow from most folks, and she seems to fit those roses. I’m glad she’s got the afternoon off, even if I do have to look after some of her customers. She was awful good to me when I had the flu, and I hope she has a good time with her roses and her swell friends.”

“Yes, she’s all right,” assented another girl, burying her nose deep in her rose. And the others all chorused, “Sure, she is!” as they separated to their various places, each breathing the perfume of her rose.

Marion ate no lunch. She was too much excited. The great hour was here at last, and after it would come the time of self-humiliation. But she was going to forget all about it until the concert was over. She was going to enjoy to the full the joy that had been set before her.

She hurried to the dressing room and donned the new dress and hat. The old dress was tucked away in the box to stay in her locker until Monday.

She thought with a qualm of conscience as she turned away from the glass that perhaps she ought not to have made herself look quite so much like a girl of his own class, and then the task before her would have been easier.

It seemed very strange to her to sit in a luxurious chair in the waiting room, dressed like a lady, and see the whirl of life go on around her, while off in the distance she could glimpse the ribbon counter, with the girls going busily about, now and then stopping to smell their roses. A happy smile came into Marion’s eyes as she noticed this, and she bowed her face to her own glorious roses fastened on her chest. She was glad over the roses, that they had come that special day in time for the concert and that there had been enough to give the other girls some—the other girls, who were not going to have her good time. She wished she might thank the giver.

He came exactly on the minute appointed; and, when she stood up quietly at his approach, he half paused and caught his breath at the lovely vision she made—the soft cream-colored dress, the attractive hat, the shining of her eyes, the glow of her cheeks above the velvet of the gorgeous roses. He had not known how beautiful she was before, he told himself, though he had always thought her lovely. Did the roses or the clothes or the joy in her face make all the difference, wondered he? How he should like to spend his life making her look like that!

Chapter 13

A
sweet shyness came down upon Marion as they went on their way to the Academy of Music. Her companion seemed to see and understand, and he did most of the talking himself, making her forget the strangeness of it all.

But when they entered the Academy by the great front door, where only the select who frequented the boxes might enter, she was filled with awe.

They mounted only one low flight of broad, marble stairs and entered the enchanted areas of the first balcony; and he led her to one of the luxurious boxes in the semicircle, set apart by crimson curtains. When she sank into her velvet chair down close to the front rail and looked out over the great room and down upon the platform that she had seen only from afar, she realized that everything was different from this point of view.

For an instant her soul quivered before the thought that her other world where she belonged, which was represented by the highest gallery, would perhaps be spoiled for her by this brief stay in luxury. Then she put it all aside joyously. Never mind if her own world seemed not so grand by contrast. She would always know hereafter how it felt to be one of those favored ones down here. She was having her taste of the delights of luxury, and she would enjoy concerts all the more after having this broader view of life.

Sitting thus with the crimson background, the crimson roses against the soft tan of her dress, Marion was beautiful. Isabel Cresson, on the other side of the house in a gloomy proscenium box, attended by her aunt, was unable to recognize her. There was nothing about her outfit that could be criticized. It had the stamp of a foreign maker just because the owner had learned the art of the great originators of her models.

Isabel was baffled by the sight and much disquieted within her. She studied the other girl again and again through the afternoon; but not once did she dream that she was the plain, despised Marion Warren, sitting in the seat of the mighty and looking as lovely as one of them. She tried once to signal Lyman to bring his friend around to meet her; but he did not seem to see her, and she had to solace herself with watching his devotion to his beautiful companion.

From the moment when the great pianist came to the platform until the last lingering note of the last encore was over, and the last bow was received with jubilant applause, Marion was utterly unconscious of self. The strong, fine personality of the musician, which seemed to fill the great auditorium and dominate every being in it from the moment of his entrance, charmed her.