The Island of Faith Part 6

IX

AND ANOTHER

As the days crept into weeks, Rose-Marie no longer felt the dull unrest of inaction. She was busy at the Settlement House--her clubs for mothers and young girls, her kindergarten for the little tots, had grown amazingly popular. And at the times when she was not busy at the Settlement House, she had the Volsky family and their many problems to occupy her.

The Volsky family--and their many problems! Rose-Marie would have found it hard to tell which problem was the most important! Of course Lily came first--her infirmities and her sweetness made her the central figure. But the problem of Ella was a more vital one to watch--it was, somehow, more immediate. Rose-Marie had found it hard to reach Ella--except when Lily was the topic of conversation; except when Lily's welfare was to be considered, she stayed silently in the background. But the flashings of her great dark eyes, the quiverings of her too scarlet mouth, were ominous. Rose-Marie could see that the untidiness of the flat, the drunken mutterings of Pa, and her mother's carelessness and dirt had strained Ella's resistance to the breaking point. Some day there would be a crash and, upon that day Ella would disappear like a gorgeous b.u.t.terfly that drifts across the road, and out of sight. Rose-Marie was hoping to push that day into the background--to make it only a dim uncertainty rather than the sword of Damocles that it was. But she could only hope.

Bennie, too, was a problem. But it was Bennie who cheered Rose-Marie when she felt that her efforts in behalf of Ella were failing. For Bennie's brain was the fertile ground in which she could plant ideals, and dreams.

Bennie was young enough to change, and easily. He got into the way of waiting for her, after his school had been dismissed, in the little park.

And there, seated close together on an iron bench, they would talk; and Rose-Marie would tell endless stories. Most of the stories were about knights who rode upon gallant quests, and about old-time courtesy, and about wonderful animals. But sometimes she told him of her home in the country--of apple trees in bloom, and frail arbutus hiding under the snow. She told him of coasting parties, and bonfires, and trees to climb.

And he listened, star-eyed and adoring. They made a pretty picture together--the slim, rosy-cheeked girl and the ragged little boy, with the pale, city sunshine falling, like a mist, all about them.

Lily and Ella and Bennie--Rose-Marie loved them, all three. But Jim Volsky was the unsolvable problem--the one that she tried to push to the back of her mind, to avoid. Mrs. Volsky and Pa she gave up as nearly hopeless--she kept, as much as possible, out of Pa's way, and Mrs. Volsky could only be helped in the attaining of creature comforts--her spirit seemed dead! But Jim insisted upon intruding upon her moments in the flat; he monopolized conversations, and asked impertinent questions, and stared. More than once he had offered to "walk her home" as she was leaving; more than once he had thrust himself menacingly across her path.

But she had managed, neatly, to avoid him.

Rose-Marie was afraid of Jim. She admitted it to herself--she even admitted, at times, that the Young Doctor might be of a.s.sistance if any emergency should arise out of Jim's sleek persistence. She had noticed, from the first, that the doctor was an impressive man among men--she had seen the encouraging swell of muscles through the warm tweed of his coat sleeve. But to have asked his help in the controlling of Jim would have been an admission of deceit, of weakness, of failure! To prove her own theory that the people were real, underneath--to prove that they had some sort of a code, and worth-while impulses--she had to make the reformation of the Volsky family her own, individual task.

Yes--Rose-Marie was busy. Almost she hated to give up moments of her time to the letters she had to write home--to the sewing that she had to do.

She made few friends among the teachers and visitors who thronged the Settlement House by day--she was far too tired, when night came, to meet with the Young Doctor and the Superintendent in the cosy little living-room. But often when her activities lasted well along into the evening, often when her clubs gave sociables or entertainments, she was forced to welcome the Young Doctor (the Superintendent was always welcome); to make room for him beside her own place.

It was during one of these entertainments--her Girls' Sewing Society was giving a party--that she and the Young Doctor had their first real talk.

Before the quarrel at the luncheon table they had had little time together; since the quarrel the Young Doctor had seldom been able to corner Rose-Marie. But at the entertainment they were placed, by the hand of circ.u.mstance, upon a wooden settee in the back of the room. And there, for the better part of two hours--while Katie Syrop declaimed poetry and Helen Merskovsky played upon the piano, and others recited long and monotonous dialogues--they were forced to stay.

The Young Doctor was in a chastened mood. He applauded heartily whenever a part of the program came to a close; the comments that he made behind his hand were neither sarcastic nor condescending. He praised the work that Rose-Marie had done and then, while she was glowing--almost against her will--from the warmth of that praise, he ventured a remark that had nothing to do with the work.

"When I see you," he told her very seriously, "when I see you, sitting here in one of our gray coloured meeting rooms, I can't help thinking how appropriate your name is. Rose-Marie--there's a flower, isn't there, that's named Rosemary? I like flowery names!"

Rose-Marie laughed, as lightly as she could, to cover a strange feeling of embarra.s.sment.

"Most people don't like them," she said--"flowery names, I mean. I don't myself. I like names like Jane, and Anne, and Nancy. I like names like Phyllis and Sarah. I've always felt that my first name didn't fit my last one. Thompson," she was warming to her subject, "is such a matter-of-fact name. There's no romance in it. But Rose-Marie--"

The Young Doctor interrupted.

"But Rose-Marie," he finished for her, "is teeming with romance! It suggests vague perfumes, and twilight in the country, and gay little lights shining through the dusk. It suggests poetry."

Rose-Marie had folded her hands, softly, in her lap. Her eyes were bent upon them.

"My mother," she said, and her voice was quiet and tender, "loved poetry.

I've heard how she used to read it every afternoon, in her garden. She loved perfumes, too, and twilight in the country. My mother was the sort of a woman who would have found the city a bit hard, I think, to live in.

Beauty meant such a lot--to her. She gave me my name because she thought, just as you think, that it had a hint of lovely things in it. And, even though I sometimes feel that I'd like a plainer one, I can't be sorry that she gave it to me. For it was a part of her--a gift that was built out of her imagination," all at once she coughed, perhaps to cover the slight tremor in her voice, and then--

"To change the subject," she said, "I'll tell you what Rosemary really is. You said that you thought it was a flower. It's more than a flower,"

she laughed shakily, "it's a st.u.r.dy, evergreeny sort of little shrub. It has a clean fragrance, a trifle like mint. And it bears small blue blossoms. Folk say that it stands for remembrance," suddenly her eyes were down, again, upon her clasped hands. "Let's stop talking about flowers and the country--and mothers--" she said suddenly. Her voice broke upon the last word.

The Young Doctor's understanding glance was on the girl's down-bent face.

After a moment he spoke.

"Are you ever sorry that you left the home town, Miss Rose-Marie?" he questioned.

Rose-Marie looked at him, for a moment, to see whether he was serious.

And then, as no flicker of mirth stirred his mouth, she answered.

"Sometimes I'm homesick," she said. "Usually after the lights are out, at night. But I'm never sorry!"

The Young Doctor was staring off into s.p.a.ce--past the raised platform where the girls of the club were performing.

"I wonder," he said, after a moment, "I wonder if you can imagine what it is to have nothing in the world to be lonesome for, Miss Rose-Marie?"

Rose-Marie felt a quick wave of sympathy toward him.

"My mother and my father are dead, Dr. Blanchard--you know that," she told him, "but my aunts have always been splendid," she added honestly, "and I have any number of friends! No, I've never felt at all alone!"

The Young Doctor was silent for a moment. And then--

"It isn't an alone feeling that I mean," he told her, "not exactly! It's rather an empty feeling! Like hunger, almost. You see my father and mother are dead, too. I can't even remember them. And I never had any aunts to be splendid to me. My childhood--even my babyhood--was spent in an orphan asylum with a firm-fisted matron who punished me; with n.o.body to give me the love I needed. I came out of it a hard man--at fourteen.

I--" he broke off, suddenly, and then--

"I don't know why I'm telling you all this," he said; "you wouldn't be in the least interested in my school days--they were pretty drab! And you wouldn't be interested in the scholarship that gave me my profession.

For," his tone changed slightly, "you aren't even interested in the result--not enough to try to understand my point of view, when I attempt to tell you, frankly, just what I think of the people down here--barring girls like these," he pointed to the stage, "and a few others who are working hard to make good! You act, when I say that they're like animals, as if I'm giving you a personal insult! You think, when I suggest that you don't go, promiscuously, into dirty tenements, that I'm trying to curb your ambition--to spoil your chances of doing good! But I'm not, really. I'm only endeavouring, for your own protection, to give you the benefit of my rather bitter experience. I don't want any one so young, and trusting and--yes, beautiful--as you are, to be forced by experience into my point of view. We love having you here, at the Settlement House.

But I almost wish that you'd go home--back to the place and the people that you're lonesome for--after the lights are out!"

Rose-Marie, watching the play of expression across his keen dark face, was struck, first of all by his sincerity. It was only after a moment that she began to feel the old resentment creeping back.

"Then," she said at last, very slowly, "then you think that I'm worthless here? It seems to me that I can help the people more, just because I am fresh, and untried, and not in the least bitter! It seems to me that by direct contact with them I may be able to show them the tender, guiding hand of G.o.d--as it has always been revealed to me. But you think that I'm worthless!"

There was a burst of loud singing from the raised platform. The girls of the sewing club loved to sing. But neither Rose-Marie nor the Young Doctor was conscious of it.

"No," the Young Doctor answered, also very slowly, "no, I don't think that you are worthless--not at all.-But I'm almost inclined to think that you're _wasted_. Go home, child, go home to the little town! Go home before the beautiful colour has worn off the edge of your dreams!"

Again Rose-Marie felt the swift burst of anger that she had felt upon other occasions. Why did he persist in treating her like a child? But her voice was steady as she answered.

"Well," she said, "I'm afraid that I'll have to disappoint you! For I came here with a definite plan to carry out. And I'm going to stay here until I've at least partly made good!"

The Young Doctor was watching her flushed face. He answered almost regretfully.

"Then," he said, "I'm glad that you have a sweetheart--you didn't deny it, you know, the other night! He'll take you away from the slums, I reckon, before very long! He'll take you away before you've been hurt!"

Rose-Marie, looking straight ahead, did not answer. But the weight of deceit upon her soul made her feel very wicked.

Yes, the weight of deceit upon her soul made her feel very wicked! But later that night, after the club members had gone home, dizzy with many honours, it was not the weight of deceit that troubled her. As she crept into her narrow little bed she was all at once very sorry for herself; and for a vanished dream! Dr. Blanchard could be so nice--when he wanted to. He could be so understanding, so sympathetic! There on the bench in the rear of the room they had been, for a moment, very close together.

She had nearly come back, during their few minutes of really intimate conversation, to her first glowing impression of him. And then he had changed so suddenly--had so abruptly thrust aside the little house of friendship that they had begun to build. "If he would only let me," she told herself, "I could teach him to like the things I like. If he would only understand I could explain just how I feel about people. If he would only give me a chance I could keep him from being so lonely."

Rose-Marie had known few men. The boys of her own town she scarcely regarded as men--they were old playmates, that was all. No one stood out from the other, they were strikingly similar. They had carried her books to school, had shared apples with her, had played escort to prayer-meetings and to parties. But none of them had ever stirred her imagination as the Young Doctor stirred it.

There in the dark Rose-Marie felt herself blushing. Could it be possible that she felt an interest in the Young Doctor, an interest that was more than a casual interest? Could it be possible that she liked a man who showed plainly, upon every possible occasion, that he did not like her?

Could it be possible that a person who read sensational stories, who did not believe in the greatness of human nature, who refused to go to church, attracted her?

Of a sudden she had flounced out of bed; had shrugged her slender little body into a shapeless wrapper--the parting gift of a girl friend--from which her small flushed face seemed to grow like some delicate spring blossom. With hurried steps--she might almost have been running away from something--she crossed the room to a small table that served as a combination dresser and writing desk. Brushing aside her modest toilet articles, she reached for a pad of paper and a small business-like fountain pen. Her aunts--she wanted them, all at once, and badly. She wished that she might talk with them--writing seemed so inadequate.