Crimson Roses (7 page)

Chapter 4

S
he hurried to the department store, full of tremors. As in a dream, she passed through the ordeal there. She came out a half hour later dazed with the swiftness of the system through which she had passed. She went to the waiting room and sat down for a minute or two to think it over and steady herself. She dared not go home to her sister-in-law with the strangeness of it all upon her. It seemed odd to her that people passing back and forth in the store did not look at her and see from her eyes that something unusual had happened to her. She was employed, regularly employed as a saleswoman, although it had been strongly impressed upon her that the size of the salary she was receiving was entirely due to the influence of the bank president and that, in the words of the brusque Mr. Chapman, it was “up to her” to get more pay as rapidly as she chose. It was at the ribbon counter that she was to begin, but perhaps someday she might attain to the book department. Mr. Chapman had intimated that there might be a vacancy there soon, and he would see. Her eyes shone in anticipation. To handle books! To know them as if they were people, acquaintances! To be among them all day long! What joy that would be!

She sat quietly thinking it over for at least ten minutes, looking around at the great store with its rising galleries and vaulted arches, listening to the heavenly music that came from the organ up in the heights somewhere among those tiers of white and gold pillars. It was her store. She was part of it. In a little while she was to be one of the wheels in the great mechanism that made this institution possible. She would be where she could watch the multitude of passing faces, hear the grand music, and now and then catch passing bits of uplifting conversation. It was wonderful, wonderful! How glad her father would have been! Of course he would have been sorry, grieved, that it must be just as a salesgirl she was to start out in life, and not as a teacher; but that could not be, and she knew he would have been glad of this opportunity for her.

Then, with a little quaking in her heart at the thought of Tom and Jennie and what they would say, she rose hurriedly and wound her way through the store, a little frail figure of a girl with shining eyes and a flower face, her plain, neat street suit and black felt hat attracting little attention beside the gaudy spring attire that flaunted itself on every hand.

She had to stand in the trolley car nearly all the way home; for it was after five o’clock, and cross, tired shoppers filled up every seat before the shy girl could reach them. The red had faded from her cheeks by the time she reached home, and Jennie noticed that she looked worn and tired, albeit the glow in the girl’s eyes puzzled her.

“Where on earth have you been?” she questioned sharply. “I should think with all there is to do you might have hurried home.”

“I have been to see someone,” said Marion, as she had planned to say. “I came home as soon as I could.”

“H’m!” said her sister-in-law significantly. “Well, I’ve taken down all the curtains and washed them this afternoon, and I’m tired; so you can get supper. You better hurry, for Tom has to go out this evening early.”

Without answering, Marion laid aside her hat and coat and obediently went into the kitchen, tying on her apron as she went. In spite of her she could not get rid of a feeling of guilt in the presence of her sister-in-law, but out in the kitchen by herself she felt like singing at the thought of the prospect before her. She would not have to take orders from Jennie anymore, nor bear her frowns and sharp words. She would be her own mistress. There might be orders in the store, of course there would, but she would have her hours and her times when she might do as she pleased. Her whole life would not be under unsympathetic surveillance.

But Jennie was not nearly as unconcerned as she tried to appear. She was genuinely worried. Had Marion somehow found that will? Did she suspect that it had been hidden? She longed to go to the old desk and see whether it was still where she had hidden it, but she did not dare lest Marion should see her and suspect something.

“Do you suppose she’s been to see a lawyer about whether she’s got to sign away her part of the house?” questioned Jennie in a whisper when Tom came home.

“Nonsense! Jennie,” exclaimed her husband, “what’s got into you? Marion won’t make a fuss. She never did in her life. She’s a meek little thing. She wouldn’t dare. You’ll find her as interested in the plans as you are in a few days.”

“Well, I’m not so sure,” said his wife with set lips. “I shall breathe easier when that deed is signed.”

“Fiddlesticks!” said her husband. “You leave Marion to me, and for pity’s sake don’t talk to her about it. Half the trouble in this world is made by this continual haranguing. Women always have to yammer a lot about everything. It makes a man sick!”

Nevertheless, at the dinner table he eyed his sister surreptitiously and seemed anxious to appease her. He talked a lot in a loud, breezy tone and tried to make them all laugh. He laughed a great deal himself and spoke of what nice times they were going to have on the farm. He passed Marion the cake twice, instead of eating the last piece himself as he usually did.

“How about it, girls?” he asked jovially as he carefully picked up some crumbs on the tablecloth beside his plate. “Can we get packed up in three weeks?”

“Of course!” said Jennie sharply, not daring to look at Marion.

“How about it, Marion, do you think we can?” asked her brother as Marion arose to clear off the table.

“Why, I should think so,” said Marion coolly as she gathered up a stack of dishes.

She felt as if she were shouting it and marveled at how willing she was now to have the house sold, if sold it must be, since she had a new life before her. Not that she was at all reconciled to leaving her home; but she had decided that it was the right thing to do to let Tom get his farm, and having decided, she had put it away from her thoughts. She knew the wrench was going to be very great when it came, but she did not feel quite so bitter about it now that she had a prospect of something besides the desolation of a farm life in Jennie’s continual company.

But she did not want her brother to discover her secret yet, so she hurried out of the room lest he suspect something in her acquiescence to his plans. She knew that the traditions of the family made it imperative that she should be taken care of. Tom was old-fashioned. He would not think it right to leave her alone in the city. He would feel he was not doing his duty by her. Tom was determined to do right by her, though his ideas of what were right for her were sometimes out of focus. She had not yet planned how to carry out the rest of the project, nor how to break the news to her brother that she was not going with him to Vermont. But if he found it out too soon, he would surely manage to upset all her plans and perhaps make it necessary for her to go after all.

But Tom was not of a suspicious nature and was too conceited to think that his sister would stand out long against him. So he only raised his eyebrows at his wife with a knowing “See, Jennie?” and began to whistle.

After that the packing went merrily forward, and no one could complain that Marion did not do her share, though all the time her heart was exceedingly sorrowful at leaving her old home.

When Wednesday evening came, Marion hurried through the dishes and put on her coat and hat.

“Marion, you’re never going to prayer meeting tonight after the way you’ve worked today!” exclaimed Jennie disapprovingly. “I think you owe it to us to stay at home and rest, if you won’t consider your own feelings. There’s more yet to do tomorrow. You ought to stay at home and go to bed.”

Marion turned in dismay at this new obstacle to her plans. She had been troubled to seem to dissemble about the prayer meeting, but it was the only way to get a chance to go out and hunt a boarding-place without being questioned, and a whole week was gone already. She looked at her sister-in-law in distress.

“I would rather go, Jennie,” she said, and felt as if she were uttering a lie. “You know I am used to going out Wednesday night—”

“Well there’s such a thing as carrying religion too far and making it ridiculous. You’re going away from here soon now, anyway, and it doesn’t matter one prayer meeting more or less. From now on I think you’ll be plenty busy without prancing off to that church where the folks don’t care a straw about you, anyway. Besides, if you have any strength left, I wish you’d stay home and help me let down Nannie’s dress for traveling. She’s grown so tall it won’t do at all.”

Marion stood uncertainly by the door. Was it possible she must stay at home this evening? Just then help arose from an unexpected source.

“Oh, let her go if she wants to, Jennie. She always was a great one for church, and we’re going off in the country where she can’t get to church often. She might as well take her fill before we leave. As for letting down Nannie’s dress, I’d wait till I got there, for she’ll have trouble in going on a half-fare ticket if you make her look a day older. Run along, Marion; you’ve earned your evening. Do as you like with it.”

Marion cast a grateful look at her brother and hurried out into the darkness, still feeling guilty with the knowledge that she was not going to church tonight, yet afraid to say anything lest she should be stopped.

Tom retired behind his paper, while his wife informed him that he made a perfect little goose out of Marion. No wonder she was spoiled. If he was half as good to his wife, he’d have kept his sister at home to help her this evening. She was too tired to put the children to bed.

Whereupon he informed her dryly that Marion was nearly twenty-three years old and didn’t have to do as she was told; in fact, didn’t have to live with them at all, so he didn’t exactly see the point. After which he folded up his paper and put the children to bed himself, which mollified his wife somewhat, but also gave him a period in which to reflect on the usefulness of unmarried sisters.

Marion’s evening was a fruitless search. She could not find anywhere in the neighborhood a room that was not far beyond her pocketbook. And it began to seem as if boardinghouses, at least any that looked at all possible, were only for multimillionaires.

Marion felt that her disappointment was a just reward for staying away from prayer meeting, and she went home more downcast than she had been since her brother announced his intention of selling the house. How could she find a place to live without explaining the whole matter to her brother? Perhaps that would yet be the only way out of her difficulty. But now to her uncertainty was added the fear that there were no places where she could possibly afford to live that would not be intolerable for one reason or another. They were either too hot or too cold or too unsanitary or too utterly distasteful in some way, when they were not too expensive. Once in a while she would find one that she thought could be made to do, and then she would discover some terrible drawback and have to move on to another place. So she came home, a trifle later than she usually came from prayer meeting, and had to meet Jennie’s sharp eyes and prying questions about why she was so late.