Crimson Roses (25 page)

“And now that you know, do you think you could care for me?” He asked the question tenderly, looking down into her face as they walked slowly down the bright avenue, utterly oblivious of the other pedestrians.

She lifted her eyes to him wonderingly.

“How could I help it?” she asked. “I’ve cared from the first minute you spoke to me, and I have been so troubled about it I did not know what to do. I almost decided to go to Vermont and live with my brother and get away from the temptation. It seemed so terrible in me to dare to care for you
—you!
Oh, I don’t see how I’m ever to believe it. And I don’t think it can be right for me to accept this great thing. I’m sure you don’t understand how ignorant and untrained I am.”

“My darling!” said he. “Don’t! I cannot bear to hear you say those things about yourself. I love you for yourself and not for your achievements. Those things are only outside matters. We will study together, you and I.”

“Oh!” breathed the girl. “I could not think of anything more beautiful in life than that—”

“You darling!” he said again. “If you keep on looking at me like that, I shall be obliged to kiss you right here on the street; and that would be scandalous, I suppose.”

“Oh!” gasped Marion, dropping her eyes in alarm, while the lovely waves of color rushed into her cheeks.

“There! Don’t be frightened,” he laughed. “I’ll remember the conventionalities; only you really make it very hard work when you put on that adorable look. Tell me, did you like the roses?”

“Like them! I—
loved
them. But how did you do it? It is so wonderful! It is all wonderful.”

“Oh, it was easily managed. I just went early and got in as soon as the doors were open. In fact, I bribed one of the doorkeepers to let me in early, and then put the rose in your chair and went down to the proscenium box to watch you. You almost caught me once when you came so early. I was just going up the last step at the left-hand door when you entered the middle door. I waited to watch you through the crack that time. And do you remember when you asked the usher what to do with your first rose? I was standing boldly in the doorway, talking to the other usher all the time. I wanted to be sure that you took my rosebud home with you.”

“Oh!” said Marion. It seemed to be her one available word.

“Do you remember a night when it rained, and you went home in the car? Did you know I walked home with you from the corner and held my umbrella over you? I doubt if you realized it, for you must have gotten just as wet as if you had been alone, it was blowing so hard.”

“Oh, was it you?” Her eyes glowed at him again. “I called a ‘thank you’ into the darkness. Did you hear me? I always thought I heard an answer.”

“I answered you,” he said eagerly. “I said, ‘You’re welcome, dear.’ To be sure, I whispered the ‘dear’ to myself; but didn’t your heart hear it, dear?”

“I believe it did,” she answered softly, “only I didn’t know what made me so happy. I thought it was the rose.”

They walked on fully absorbed in each other, the blocks counting into one, two, three miles.

“And did you know from the first that I worked in the store?” she asked once.

“No, I had to search that out. After that night in the rain when I found out where you lived, I was determined to make a way to be introduced. I made errands down that way day after day, changing the hour and walking up and down the street, or riding past, hoping to catch a glimpse of you. At last it occurred to me that, coming from that neighborhood and a plain house, you very likely had to earn your living. Your interest in the concerts made me think of music, naturally, but careful listening could never even imagine a sound of music coming from your abiding place. I felt sure you could not be a music teacher, or there would have been a piano heard sometimes. I thought perhaps you taught school—”

“That was what Father wanted for me,” she interrupted sadly.

“So I went very early to the street, but not early enough to catch you yet. Then I thought of stenography and bookkeeping.”

“All too high for me to attempt,” she murmured humbly.

“At last, about a week after I began to watch, I went one morning before it was quite daylight and tramped up and down, always in sight of the house, until I was rewarded by seeing you come out. You haven’t any idea how my heart pounded as I turned to follow you at a discreet distance. I never felt so shy in my life. I met a policeman a few blocks on the way, and he looked at me half suspiciously, I thought, as if I must appear guilty. But you walked calmly on and never seemed to notice that your steps were being followed.”

“Oh, how frightened I should have been if I had known!” she exclaimed.

“Am I so formidable?”

Then they both laughed, and he began again.

“I saw you enter the door for employees, and then I had a long search through the departments until I found you. I began at last to despair and to suspect that you were hidden away in some mysterious workroom on a top floor or in some dull office; but I finally came upon you, all by chance, right in the midst of the beautiful colors of all those ribbons. That day I celebrated by having you make me some roses. Have you forgotten?”

“Forgotten! How could I? I’ve often wondered about them. I thought then they were for your wife. The girls all said so. They said your wife must be very happy to have you care so much for her.”

“I hope she will be happy,” he said reverently. “I shall make it my business to do all I can in that direction. Yes, I guess the roses were for my wife, though I wanted them for myself till she came to me. I will give them to you, my wife, on our wedding morning. How soon can that be?”

“Oh!” said Marion softly. “Oh!” and then, “Oh, I don’t know.” Her eyes drooped, and her whole countenance took on a troubled look.

“Couldn’t we be married right away?” he asked. “Is there anything or anybody to hinder? I haven’t told you a bit about myself yet, have I? Perhaps you won’t feel like trusting me until you’ve known me longer, though.”

“Oh, it isn’t that!” said the girl quickly. “It never could be that. It’s only that I … that there are so many things … so much for me to do first before I could be fit … ready … ever to marry you … if I ever really could be.”

“What things? Clothes, do you mean?”

“Yes, clothes, and other things, and I’d have a great deal to learn. I don’t know that I could ever learn it all.”

“And why should you? I thought we were going to study together. What right would you have to go off and study things by yourself? And, as for the clothes, I always thought that was the silliest of all silly reasons to keep a man away from his wife for weeks and weeks after they have found out they love each other and decided to get married. I don’t want a lot of fine clothes for a wife; I want you, now, just as you are. You’re sweet enough and pretty enough and fine enough to please me always; and, if you need a lot of new things, it shall be my pride and pleasure to buy them for you. You’ll have plenty of time to select what you want and can go about it in a leisurely way. I can assure you I’m not going to be a bit patient about this. I want you right away. Couldn’t you arrange to marry me some day next week? I’ve got to go up to Boston on a business trip, and I want to take you with me. I can’t bear to go and leave you—”

“Oh no!” gasped Marion. “I couldn’t possibly. Oh! Why, you’ve only just told me about it—”

“Dear,” said he, tenderly pressing the hand he held. “I’m not going to frighten you with my haste—and we’ll do things decently and in order as you wish it, of course—but you forget that I’ve been thinking of this all winter; and perhaps you don’t know it, but I’m a very lonesome man. I need you tremendously. I’ve nobody to love me and nobody to love except the world at large. Mother died two years ago. She had been an invalid for ten years, and she and I had traveled together a great deal whenever she was able. I have missed her more than I can tell you, since she went away. I live in a great big house with two old servants who have been with us since I was a boy. They do their best to make it comfortable, but they cannot make a home, and I want you there with your brightness and beauty. I want to be with you and have your companionship in my work and pleasure. Must I wait? Couldn’t you make it next week? Are you afraid of me? Don’t you love me enough to come to me right away?”

As he told of his mother, her other hand had stolen up and touched his gently, as if she wanted to console him for his loss; and he gathered it with the other in his clasp.

“I love you enough to come right away, of course,” she said, and her voice was clear and steady now. “It isn’t that; it’s only that I feel so unready in mind and ways; and then, I’ve really no thing such as other people get married in. I shouldn’t feel right not to get
some
things ready, and then, besides, there’s the store. You know when we sign the contract we promise to give a month’s notice if we are going to leave. It wouldn’t be fair to them.”

“Don’t worry about the store,” he said joyously. “Chapman’s a good friend of mine. It would need only a word from me to get you off in a hurry. I’ll see to that if you’ll give me permission. I want you. I need you; why, I
—love
you, dear! Can’t you see? You wouldn’t let clothes and things stand in the way of that, would you?”

In the end he had his way. When did a man not have his way who talked like that? Marion had the feeling that she had suddenly been invited to enter heaven all as she was, arrayed in earthly garments; nevertheless, a great joy and sweetness came down upon her. She could scarcely realize her own gladness, it was so great. She had not yet gotten used to knowing that he loved her and that he had been the giver of the roses that had gladdened her heart all winter, and here was the great question of marriage pushed in, for which she felt so unfit.

“I’m not at all the kind of wife you ought to have,” she said faintly after her last protest had been silenced. “People will pity you and think you have demeaned yourself to marry a lowly person. Isabel will think—”

“Never mind what Isabel thinks. I’ll warrant you one thing, she will be among the first to call upon my wife.”

“And oh, what shall I do? How shall I act?” Marion almost stopped in her walk, aghast at the prospect.

“You’ll act just your own sweet, natural self, dear,” he said, “and she will go away and say how very charming you are and how she has known you and admired you all her life. Oh, don’t I know her? She is a cunning one, and she will not leave you off her calling list. There are reasons why she will prefer to pose as your intimate friend. As for other people, I’m not afraid that my wife will not win her sweet way wherever she goes; and, if any dare to think in my presence any such things as you have mentioned, I shall be glad to teach them otherwise. Now, dear, you are not to think this thing about yourself another minute. You are yourself, and just what I want. You are the only woman in the whole world that I love and want for my wife. Besides that, you’re tired; for we’ve walked miles, and now we’re going home in a taxi, and you’re going to rest tonight. And tomorrow afternoon you’re going to let me come and take you out in my car, where we shall be alone and can talk together. Then perhaps in the evening we’ll go to church together and horrify dear Isabel just once more before she finds she has to change her tactics.”

An hour later in her room Marion stood before her mirror and surveyed herself critically. The new dress was undeniably pretty and the new hat attractive. Roses and cheeks vied with each other in glowing crimson, and her eyes had not lost their starry look. But she was not admiring herself as she stood and looked earnestly. She was looking into the soul of this self that smiled back to her and searching it to see whether she could find the old self anywhere, and whether it was really Marion Warren, the little ribbon-girl who had lived her lonely life for a whole year, struggling upward toward the great things she had longed for. And was this life suddenly to be all changed, and she to be put down in the midst of the larger life, where she was to be not an insignificant learner merely, but a most important part of a truly great man’s life? Could it be true? Wasn’t she dreaming?

Then the searching went deeper, and she looked into the eyes in the glass to see whether she could find any trace of the woman that was to be, out of the self that she was. Was it possible for her to fulfill the great ideal of the man who had chosen her out of all the world to be his wife? Then her great love answered for her, and she smiled back an assurance to the girl in the glass who questioned.

“I will do my best; and, if he is satisfied, nothing else matters,” she murmured softly to herself.

Then she turned to look about on her little room with new eyes. There it all was just as she had left it in the early morning, everything in order, only her scissors and some bits of silk scraps on the desk betraying her last bit of preparation for this wonderful afternoon. There was the small box of provisions standing by the partly open window from which she had expected to get her meager supper after the concert should be over. To think now how superfluous any supper seemed after that wonderful dinner!