Crimson Roses (14 page)

Marion, in dismay, with no umbrella or overshoes, lingered until all but a few were gone. Then, stepping outside under the metal awning that covered the sidewalk to the curbing, she decided that she must go home. It was getting very late, and there seemed no sign of a letup.

She did not like to linger longer alone. There were only men left now, and they were glancing at her. She felt uncomfortable. In a moment more the doors of the Academy of Music would close, and she would be left standing in the dark, wet street. She could not walk home and must sacrifice a few cents of that hoarded sum that was growing toward next winter’s symphony concerts, and perhaps a lecture or two in between.

The car came, and she made a dash through the wet and gained the platform. It was only a step; yet she was very wet, and her heart sank at the thought of her garments. She could not afford to replace them if they were spoiled.

The car was full, and she could barely get a seat, squeezed in between two cross, fat women. Marion thought with a sinking heart of the half-block she must walk in this driving storm when she reached her own corner. She could not hope to protect herself. She must make up her mind to face it, for the rain was pelting down as hard as ever.

The car stopped at her corner, and she stood for just an instant gasping on the step before she made the plunge into the downpour, expecting to be soaked to the skin at once; but to her surprise she felt only a few sharp spatters in her face now and then and the instant chill of water on her ankles as she hurried down the street.

Suddenly she realized that a shelter was over her. Someone, whom she could not see because of the rain in her eyes when she turned her head, and because of the slant of the blackness before her, was holding an umbrella over her as she flew along. She dared not turn to look and had no breath to speak and thank him. Indeed, so black was the night—for the electric streetlamps were gone out—that it seemed as if an umbrella had stepped impersonally off the car and was conducting her to her home in the teeth of the storm.

A moment more, and she was safe in the vestibule of her abiding-place; and the dark form who had protected her, umbrella and all, was rushing on through the blackness. Oh, why hadn’t she drawn him into the shelter until the rain stopped?

“Come back!” she called, but the wind tossed her words scornfully into her face. Then “Thank you!” she flung out into the darkness, and was it her imagination or only the wind that seemed to voice the word, “Welcome”?

She put the thought away with others to keep and went slowly, smiling, up the stairs, her cheek against the wet rosebud. Someone had taken the trouble in all this storm to protect her. It mattered not who it was; it might be God. It
was
God, of course. The protector had passed on, but it warmed the girl’s lonely heart to know that he had cared, that she was not all alone in the wide universe with no one who knew or thought of her.

Out of the night and blackness had come a helping hand holding an umbrella, and passed on unknown. Why not a rose the same way? She must get over the idea that someone was picking her out from the world and bestowing flowers upon her. It was utterly absurd and ridiculous, and would put wrong notions into her head and make her dissatisfied with life.

But the next morning Marion was sick. A cold the day before, combined with the wetting and excitement, had been too much for her. She was not able to go to the store and had to pay the little colored maid downstairs to send a telephone message for her to the head of her department.

About ten o’clock that morning a boy from the florist’s rang the doorbell of the small, unpretentious house where Marion lodged. He carried a large pasteboard box under his arm and whistled to keep up a brave front. He was to earn half a dollar if he performed his errand thoroughly. He made a low bow to the tattered little maid of all work who held the door half open and giggled at him.

“Hey, kid!” he began in the familiar tone of an old friend, “do me a favor? What’s the name of the good-lookin’ lady you got livin’ here? She’s had some flowers sent to her, and I can’t for the life of me remember her name. It’s got away from me somehow, and I can’t get it back. Just mention over the names of the pretty girls you’ve got boarding here, and I might recognize it.”

“It ain’t Miss M’rion, is it?”

“Miss Marion, Miss Marion? That sounds as if it might be it. Is she small and wears a little black hat?”

“Sure!” answered the girl. “That’s her. An’ anyway she’s the only girl here now anymore. All the rest is just old women, ‘ceptin’ the ‘lect’ic-lightmen an’ the vacuum-cleaner agent. It couldn’t be no other girl, ‘cause there’ ain’t no other here now.”

“What’d you say her last name was? Marion what? I just want to be sure, you know.”

“Miss M’rion War’n,” replied the girl, and held out her hands eagerly for the box.

“Just give Miss Warren that box, please, and I’ll dance at your wedding. So long!” And he dashed away before the girl could gat a chance to ask him any questions.

The box contained two dozen great crimson roses, the exact counterpart of those that had been laid in Marion’s chair at the concerts.

Chapter 8

M
arion sat up in bed and opened the box in amazement, almost fright. There was no card, nothing even on the box to identify the florist. Just the sweet, mute faces of the lovely flowers.

The astonished, gaping maid stood by in wonder but could give no explanation except the many-times-reiterated account of her conversation with the boy.

Marion laughed into the box and cried into it. She had been feeling so lonely, and her head and limbs ached so fearfully before this box came. Almost she had repented staying in the city. Almost she had decided that probably, after all, her place had been in Vermont, caring for the children and endlessly helping Jennie for the rest of her life. Education and culture were not for her, ever. It was too lonely and too hard work. Too few promotions and too many extra expenses. The loss of this day might cut down her money a little, too, although she was allowed a certain time for sick leave.

Now, however, things seemed different. The roses had come, and behind the roses must be someone—someone who cared a little. Her cheeks glowed scarlet at the thought. She gave the astonished maid a rose and sent three more down to her sad old landlady. Then after she had laughed over the roses and cried over them again, she put them into the washbowl beside her bed and went to sleep. Someone cared!
Someone cared!
No matter who, someone cared! It was like the refrain of a lullaby. She slept with a smile upon her face; and while she dreamed, her father came and kissed her and said as he used to say long ago, “I’m glad for you, little girl,
real glad
.“

When she awoke, the roses were smiling at her, and she felt better. The next day she was able to go back to the store. She wore a bundle of roses this time, and had some to give away, which doubled her own pleasure in them.

It was two days later, while still a dusky red rose was brightening the blouse of Marion’s somber little dress, that a young man walked slowly down the aisle in front of the ribbon counter and looked earnestly at the array of ribbons as if they possessed a kind of puzzled interest for him. He walked by twice; and the third time, when he turned and came back, two of the girls at the counter whispered about him. They thought he had been sent on an errand for ribbon and didn’t know just how to go about it. They had seen his kind before. They presented themselves to his notice with a tempting, “Would you like to be waited upon?” but the young man replied gravely, “Not yet, thank you,” and went on with his investigation. He seemed to be interested in the articles in the display case below the counter, and after watching him amusedly for a minute the two salesgirls retired to a distance to comment upon him.

It happened that during the winter Marion had developed quite a talent for making ribbon flowers and tying bows. During the last three weeks she had been promoted regularly to the little counter where a line of people stood endlessly all day long with anxious, hurried looks and bolts of ribbon to be tied for “Mary’s lingerie” or “a little girl’s sash” or “my daughter’s graduating-dress” or “a young woman’s headdress” or “rosettes for the baby’s bonnet.”

Marion liked it. Especially she liked the forming of the satin flowers. It was next to working among the flowers themselves to touch the bright petals and form them into shape around the tiny stamens. She was peculiarly successful with ribbon roses, and almost every day had several orders for them for corsage or shoulder pin.

This afternoon she was sitting as usual before her bit of counter, scissors at her side, spools of wire and bunches of centers close at hand, and a stack of rainbow ribbons in front of her.

The young man gradually progressed down the length of the ribbon counter till he came to where the bows were being tied; and there he stood a little to one side, watching with absorbed interest as the skilful fingers finished the lovely knots and rosettes and buds.

The counter was busy now, and there was a line of anxious mothers and hurried shoppers waiting to get ribbons made up. The young man watched and waited awhile, and finally, to the immense amusement of the girls at the main counter who had been watching him, he edged up to Marion and spoke to her.

“Are you too busy to select the right ribbon for me and make a rose the color of the one you are wearing? I can wait until you are free if you think you can do it.”

Marion looked up. She had not noticed him before, and something in his eyes reminded her of the man at the symphony concerts; but she had never seen that man clearly, except one brief glance. Of course it could not be him. But she answered graciously.

“Certainly, I think I can find that color for you if you can wait till I finish these flowers. A customer is waiting for them.”

He bowed and stepped back out of the way, watching the passing throng and waiting until she came to him with the ribbon, matching it to the rose upon her chest. His face lit up with a puzzled kind of relief.

“That looks exactly like it,” he said.

“You want a single rose?” she asked, her sweet eyes looking directly at him in that pleasant way she had with all her customers, as if they were her friends. “Is it for the shoulder?”

“Why, yes,” said he, a little puzzled. “I don’t know how it should be. Make it like some of those in the case. Make it just as you would like to have it.” He smiled helplessly, and she answered his appeal with another smile, distant and delicate as a passing bird’s might be.

“I understand,” she said brightly. “I’ll make it pretty,” and she went at the lovely task, deftly measuring and twisting the ribbon into what seemed like a living, breathing rose, and then another tiny bud by its side with a stem and a bit of green leaf. Then she held it out to him. Did that suit him? He said that it did, entirely; and his eyes showed plainly that he spoke the truth.

“How would you … put it on?” he asked hesitatingly, and the girls at the other end of the counter beat a hasty retreat behind the cash desk to laugh.

“O, what d’ ye think o’ that?” cried one.

“The dear innocent; is he goin’ to wear it himself, or will he stick it on for her?” asked the other, mopping the tears of mirth from her eyes.

But Marion, oblivious, was holding the damask satin rose against her shoulder and showing how it should be worn.

“Say, it would be the cat’s to be that man’s wife, wouldn’t it?” said one of the girls to Marion as her customer received his package and departed with a courteous bow. “Just see the trouble he took to get her something pretty.”

Marion’s eyes glowed, and all the afternoon she meditated on the careless question. “To be that man’s wife,” what must it be? How she would like to see the wife who was to wear those roses she had just made! What a dear, beautiful woman she must be! What a charmed life she must live, with someone like that to care for her, anticipate her needs, prepare surprises and pleasures for her! It was something like her own beautiful roses; only, of course there could be no one like that behind her roses, only some dear old lady perhaps who had seen her and maybe loved her a little for the sake of a lost daughter or friend or a fancied likeness to someone. Well, it was good that she had her dear roses, and she was glad the beloved wife had someone to care for her. She would like to see her sometime with the roses on her chest. She wondered what she would be like.

And then the day’s work was finished, and Marion went home to her fading roses.

There was another church reception early that spring, and a few days before, Mrs. Shuttle happened to pass the ribbon counter and spied Marion.

“Well, I declare. Marion Warren! Is this where you have been hiding all these months? I’ve wondered why you don’t come to prayer meeting anymore, and you weren’t at the last two church suppers. I thought you promised to help on our committee. Do you know, we have just as hard a time getting someone to wash dishes as ever. Old Mrs. Brown won’t come anymore, and none of the girls are willing to stick in the kitchen and wear old clothes and keep their hands in dishwater. Can’t you come down and help us Friday night? We need you badly. There isn’t a girl left on the committee has a brain her head. They’re all for beaux and making eyes at the men. I haven’t any time for ‘em. Do come back Marion just this once and help me. I’m all tired out.”