Crimson Roses (17 page)

“Thanks, awfully, Isabel, but I’m afraid I’m not in the market for a game just now. The fact is my time is pretty well taken up.” Lyman was leading Isabel away from the table now, and Marion smiled quietly to herself. Somehow she felt as if she had a champion, someone to take her part against the world. It was a new feeling, for since her father had been taken away, she had felt she would never have anyone to care much again. Of course, Tom cared in a way. But Tom was angry with her. In all the winter she had had only one or two brief, curt letters from him, and Jennie had written not at all, though she had written to them regularly once a week for a long time until she saw she got no reply. Even then she had tried to keep up a form of correspondence. It might be one-sided, but they should not have it to say that she had not kept in touch with them. And she had sent many pretty little presents, useful things and play things, to the children—out of her small salary, too. But still, she had a feeling that she was alone in the world, and if anything hard happened to her, there was not anybody who would care very much. Therefore it was wonderful to have someone be as kind and courteous as this stranger had been.

Presently Lyman disappeared from the group of girls, and she thought perhaps he had gone home. She spied him later when she slipped into the classroom where all the younger boys had congregated to see if they had all been served, and found him with a group around him while he told them stories of his travels.

There was an extra plate of ice cream left on the tray she carried, and Lyman made room for her beside himself and begged her to sit down for just a few minutes and eat it with them. There really was not any good reason why she should refuse. The rush at the coffee table was over, and the aides were serving themselves. There was no immediate hurry about beginning on the dishes, and Mrs. Shuttle had returned and would take command for the time, so she sat down, glad that she was in an inconspicuous classroom, rather than out where everybody else was. She did not care to be in the public eye, not while Isabel was about.

It was thus she came to hear some of his wonderful stories and to listen while he described marvelous pictures he had seen in some of the world’s most famous galleries. It was noteworthy that he described those pictures in such a way that even the youngest boy in the group did not grow restless or lose interest, but kept an admiring eye upon his face and hung upon his every word.

He was describing a picture he had seen in a great art gallery abroad when there came a general stir in the room outside, and the distant clatter of dishes reminded Marion of her duty.

“They are bringing the dishes back!” she exclaimed contritely. “I must go at once. What will they think of me? I promised, you know; but oh, I thank you so much for this! It has been beautiful.”

She gathered up the dishes on the tray, and he rose to let her pass but detained her just an instant.

“Have you someone you must go home with, or may I wait and go with you?” he asked in a low tone.

The soft flush of her cheeks mounted to her forehead, and her eyes were filled with half-frightened pleasure.

“Oh, no! There is no one anymore”—her voice had a faint quiver as she spoke—“but indeed you must not wait for me. I shall be very late, and it isn’t at all necessary. I am quite used to going alone now. But I thank you very much just the same.” She hurried away to the kitchen with a smile, her heart beating high at the thought of what it would have meant to her to have a man like that escort her home. It helped to keep her smile sweet and her eyes unhurt through all the clatter of the kitchen and the reproachful voices that met her and demanded to know where she had been.

The young man lingered idly, watching her for a moment as she slipped away, pondering on the wistfulness of her eyes as she declined his offer. There was a look of resolution in his own eyes.

“I shall wait all right!” he murmured to the red and black figures of the church carpet at his feet.

Marion, in the kitchen tying on her little frilled rubber apron, was reflecting that the evening had been a rare treat after all its bad beginning, one that she would treasure among her happiest memories. This was the kind of talk for which her beauty-loving soul had longed. Now she would go the very next night to the public library and find some books about those galleries and read and read and read until she knew all that could be known about those pictures and could talk about them intelligently. She wished she might have written down some of the names of the galleries and the artists he had mentioned. If she ever had opportunity to meet him again, she would try to summon courage to ask him to write them down for her. He would think her an awful ignoramus, of course, but it would be wonderful to know.

At last the company in the chapel broke up and the big room was cleared as if by magic.

Lyman walked in a leisurely way around the room examining the inscriptions on the brass plates underneath some memorial pictures that hung upon the walls. He could hear the gentle clink of china and silver in the kitchen. Only a group of Ladies Aiders were left in the big room holding a discussion in the middle of the room about their next bazaar.

The janitor was picking up the lost handkerchiefs and gloves that always accumulate after an affair like this, and the voices of the younger people were heard in the hall saying cheerful goodnights.

A burst of hilarious laughter came through the swinging door as someone went out, and then a group of pretty girls in bright evening cloaks looked in, jostling one another in the doorway.

“Oh, here he is!” called one, and they all bore down upon him.

“Come on, Jeff!” called Isabel Cresson. “You didn’t come in your car, did you? Uncle Rad says it isn’t parked outside anywhere. He wants you to come with us. We’ll drop you at your place.”

“Thank you,” said Lyman politely, “but you see, I’m waiting for a friend.”

“Oh!” said Isabel, slightly baffled for a moment. “Well bring him along. There’s plenty of room. Uncle Rad has the big car.”

“Impossible,” said Lyman, smiling. “My friend may not be ready to go for some time, and besides, I have my car. It is parked around the corner tonight. The street was full when I came. Thank you just the same.”

Isabel gave up, somewhat crestfallen, with many a lingering glances backward to discover if possible who was the favored friend.

But at last even the Ladies Aiders departed, and Lyman approached the kitchen cautiously.

Marion thought she was all alone in the building with only the janitor out arranging the chairs in orderly rows for Sunday school. When she heard Lyman’s voice, she started.

“I’ve come to wipe dishes for you!” he said cheerfully. “Give me a towel. I know how. I used to do it when I was a little boy.”

Marion’s heart leaped, and then her pleasure was shown in her eyes. He had stayed. Everybody else was gone, and he had stayed to talk to her! Of course, he did not realize what an insignificant little girl she was, but that didn’t matter for just once. She did so want to ask him some questions about those wonderful pictures and where she could find out more about them. And he was kind. He wouldn’t mind if he did find out that she was only an ignorant girl who worked in a store. He seemed to like to help people.

She protested against his working, but he took the towel and went at it as if he really knew how, polishing glasses like an old hand in the kitchen. Marion tied a clean apron around his neck, one that Mrs. Shuttle had left lying on the table, and they worked away as blithely as if they had known each other all their lives.

Of course, it was like Isabel Cresson to make out she had left her gloves or her handkerchief or something and come back for them, just to find out if she could who that mysterious friend of Lyman’s was, just to get another word with Lyman himself, perhaps.

She pushed open the silent swinging door and looked in just as Marion was tying the apron around Lyman’s neck, and she heard their laughter ringing out in unison and saw that they were having a genuinely good time together. But they did not see her, and she let the door swing quickly back into place and searched no further for gloves that were not lost, but went back angrily to the waiting car. So that was what Marion Warren was up to, chasing Jeff! Well, that had to be looked into. That was not to be. Somebody had to warn Jeff. And somebody had to squelch that little upstart of a Marion. The idea! Marion Warren! What could he possibly see in her?

“He’s wiping dishes for that egg of a Marion Warren,” she announced as she got into the car. “I think you’ve got to get busy about that, Uncle Rad. I didn’t know she was such a sly little cat! Of all the nerve! She was perfectly insulting to me tonight. Answered me back when I brought her a message and tried to make me out in a lie right before Jeff. Was it you who introduced her to him, Uncle Rad? I should think you’d better watch out what you do. Of course, he doesn’t know anything about her. He doesn’t know what common people they are, though I should think he might see if he has any discernment. She doesn’t belong in our set at all.”

“Well, you see, he asked to be introduced,” said the uncle apologetically. “It’s strange how men will be taken with a pretty face sometimes, and I told him about her. I informed him that she came from plain, respectable people, and I really warned him. I shouldn’t like her to get any false notions about him. She’s a nice little thing, and I had a great respect for her father.”

“Oh, you needn’t worry about her!” said Isabel caustically. “If you had seen her vamp him tonight, you’d know she could take care of herself. She’s the slyest thing. She kept following him around. Everywhere he turned there she was. Pretty? I don’t see how you can say she is pretty! She looks as if she came out of the ark. She looks as if she was so innocent she belonged back in the dark ages. Look at her sallow cheeks and her white lips. She doesn’t even know how to make herself look stylish. She just depends upon old stuff, rolling those great brown eyes of hers and looking demure. Old stuff, all of it. I don’t see what makes Jeff fall for it, but he’s so fearfully afraid of hurting people’s feelings, of course, he’ll stand anything. I really think it’s up to you Uncle Rad to warn Jeff. He’ll get her talked about, you see. And I’ll make it my business to see that Marion cuts out that kind of thing from now on, or I’ll make it too hot for her in this church. I won’t stand for it, having Jeff made a goat of.”

“There, there! Isabel! Don’t get excited,” said her pacifying uncle. “I’ll manage it that Lyman will understand. You keep out of this. It’ll all blow over. Lyman doesn’t want to get mixed up with a plain little thing like that, of course, so don’t you worry. He’ll never likely see her again. It seems he was interested in her because he saw her at a symphony concert and saw how interested she was in music. That’s his line, you know, music and uplift and all that. He would be interested in a girl who was trying to uplift herself, you see, purely from a philanthropic point of view; that’s his line, Isabel; that’s his line.”

“Yes, and that’s her line, too, Uncle Rad. She always was poking around trying to learn something more about everything. Nobody thought anything of her in school; she was a regular bookworm. She wasn’t in the least popular. Of course, we had to be nice to her because she was in our classes, but she never was really taken in among the girls. Only now and then to speak to her about the lessons or something like that.”