Bab: A Sub Deb

M >> Mary Roberts Rinehart >> Bab: A Sub Deb


But I was to have no privacy.

"Bab," Sis said, in a more mild and fraternal tone, "I want you to do
somthing for me."

"Why don't you go and get it yourself?" I said. "Or ring for George?"

"I don't want you to get anything. I want you to go to father and mother
for somthing."

"I'd stand a fine chance to get it!" I said. "Unless it's Calomel or
advice."

Although not suspicous by nature, I now looked at her and saw why I had
recieved the pink hoze. It was not kindness. It was bribery!

"It's this," she explained. "The house we had last year at the seashore
is emty and we can have it. But mother won't go. She--well, she won't
go. They're going to open the country house and stay there."

A few days previously this would have been sad news for me, owing to not
being allowed to go to the Country Club except in the mornings, and no
chance to meet any new people, and no bathing save in the usual tub. But
now I thriled at the information, because the Grays have a place near
the Club also.

For a moment I closed my eyes and saw myself, all in white and decked
with flours, wandering through the meadows and on the links with a
certain Person whose name I need not write, having allready related my
feelings toward him.

I am older now by some weeks, older and sader and wiser. For Tradgedy
has crept into my life, so that somtimes I wonder if it is worth while
to live on and suffer, especialy without an Allowence, and being again
obliged to suplicate for the smallest things.

But I am being brave. And, as Carter Brooks wrote me in a recent letter,
acompanying a box of candy:

"After all, Bab, you did your durndest. And if they do not understand, I
do, and I'm proud of you. As for being `blited,' as per your note to me,
remember that I am, also. Why not be blited together?"

This latter, of course, is not serious, as he is eight years older than
I, and even fills in at middle-aged Dinners, being handsome and dressing
well, although poor.

Sis's remarks were interupted by the clamor of the door bell. I placed a
shaking hand over the Frat pin, beneath which my heart was beating only
for HIM. And waited.

What was my dispair to find it but Carter Brooks!

Now there had been a time when to have Carter Brooks sit beside me, as
now, and treat me as fully out in Society, would have thriled me to the
core. But that day had gone. I realized that he was not only to old,
but to flirtatous. He was one who would not look on a woman's Love as
precious, but as a plaything.

"Barbara," he said to me. "I do not beleive that Sister is glad to see
me."

"I don't have to look at you," Sis said, "I can knit."

"Tell me, Barbara," he said to me beseachingly, "am I as hard to look at
as all that?"

"I rather like looking at you," I rejoined with cander. "Across the
room."

He said we were not as agreable as we might be, so he picked up a
magazine and looked at the Automobile advertizments.

"I can't aford a car," he said. "Don't listen to me, either of you.
I'm only talking to myself. But I like to read the ads. Hello, here's a
snappy one for five hundred and fifty. Let me see. If I gave up a
couple of Clubs, and smokeing, and flours to DEBUTANTES--except Barbara,
because I intend to buy every pozy in town when she comes out--I
might----"

"Carter," I said, "will you let me see that ad?"

Now the reason I had asked for it was this: in the book the Girl
Detective had a small but powerful car, and she could do anything with
it, even going up the Court House steps once in it and interupting a
trial at the criticle moment.

But I did not, at that time, expect to more than wish for such a
vehical. How pleasant, my heart said, to have a car holding to, and
since there was to be no bathing, et cetera, and I was not allowed
a horse in the country, except my old pony and the basket faeton, to
ramble through the lanes with a choice Spirit, and talk about ourselves
mostly, with a sprinkling of other subjects!

Five hundred and fifty from nine hundred and forty-five leaves three
hundred and forty-five. But I need few garments at school, wearing
mostly unaforms of blue serge with one party frock for Friday nights and
receptions to Lecturers and Members of the Board. And besides, to own a
machine would mean less carfare and no shoes to speak of, because of not
walking.

Jane Raleigh came in about then and I took her upstairs and closed the
door.

"Jane," I said, "I want your advise. And be honest, because it's a
serious matter."

"If it's Tommy Gray," she said, in a contemptable manner, "don't."

How could I know, as revealed later, that Jane had gone on a Diet since
yesterday, owing to a certain remark, and had had nothing but an apple
all day? I could not. I therfore stared at her steadily and observed:

"I shall never ask for advise in matters of the Heart. There I draw the
line."

However, she had seen some caromels on my table, and suddenly burst into
emotion. I was worried, not knowing the trouble and fearing that Jane
was in love with Tom. It was a terrable thought, for which should I
do? Hold on to him and let her suffer, or remember our long years of
intimacy and give him up to her?

Should I or should I not remove his Frat pin?

However, I was not called upon to renunciate anything. In the midst of
my dispair Jane asked for a Sandwitch and thus releived my mind. I got
her some cake and a bottle of cream from the pantrey and she became more
normle. She swore she had never cared for Tom, he being not her style,
as she had never loved any one who had not black eyes.

"Nothing else matters, Bab," she said, holding out the Sandwitch in a
dramatic way. "I see but his eyes. If they are black, they go through me
like a knife."

"Blue eyes are true eyes," I observed.

"There is somthing feirce about black eyes," she said, finishing the
cream. "I feel this way. One cannot tell what black eyes are thinking.
They are a mystery, and as such they atract me. Almost all murderers
have black eyes."

"Jane!" I exclaimed.

"They mean passion," she muzed. "They are STRONG eyes. Did you ever see
a black-eyed man with glasses? Never. Bab, are you engaged to Tom?"

"Practicaly."

I saw that she wished details, but I am not that sort. I am not the kind
to repeat what has been said to me in the emotion of Love. I am one to
bury sentament deep in my heart, and have therfore the reputation of
being cold and indiferent. But better that than having the Male Sex
afraid to tell me how I effect them for fear of it being repeated to
other girls, as some do.

"Of course it cannot be soon, if at all," I said. "He has three more
years of College, and as you know, here they regard me as a child."

"You have your own income."

That reminded me of the reason for my having sought the privasy of my
Chamber. I said:

"Jane, I am thinking of buying an automobile. Not a Limousine, but
somthing styleish and fast. I must have Speed, if nothing else."

She stopped eating a caromel and gave me a stunned look.

"What for?"

"For emergencies."

"Then they disaprove of him?" she said, in a low, tence voice.

"They know but little, although what they suspect--Jane," I said, my
bitterness bursting out, "what am I now? Nothing. A prisoner, or the
equivalent of such, forbiden everything because I am to young! My Soul
hampered by being taken to the country where there is nothing to do,
given a pony cart, although but 20 months younger than Leila, and not
going to come out until she is married, or permanently engaged."

"It IS hard," said Jane. "Heart-breaking, Bab."

We sat, in deep and speachless gloom. At last Jane said:

"Has she anyone in sight?"

"How do I know? They keep me away at School all year. I am but a
stranger here, although I try hard to be otherwise."

"Because we might help along, if there is anyone. To get her married is
your only hope, Bab. They're afraid of you. That's all. You're the tipe
to atract Men, except your noze, and you could help that by pulling it.
My couzin did that, only she did it to much, and made it pointed."

I looked in my mirror and sighed. I have always desired an aristocratic
noze, but a noze cannot be altered like teeth, unless broken and then
generaly not improved.

"I have tried a shell hair pin at night, but it falls off when I go to
sleep," I said, in a despondant manner.

We sat for some time, eating caromels and thinking about Leila, because
there was nothing to do with my noze, but Leila was diferent.

"Although," Jane said, "you will never be able to live your own Life
until she is gone, Bab."

"There is Carter Brooks," I suggested. "But he is poor. And anyhow she
is not in Love with him."

"Leila is not one to care about Love," said Jane. "That makes it
eazier."

"But whom?" I said. "Whom, Jane?"

We thought and thought, but of course it was hard, for we knew none of
those who filled my sister's life, or sent her flours and so on.

At last I said:

"There must be a way, Jane. THERE MUST BE. And if not, I shall make one.
For I am desparate. The mere thought of going back to school, when I am
as old as at present and engaged also, is madening."

But Jane held out a warning hand.

"Go slow, dearie," she said, in a solemn tone. "Do nothing rash.
Remember this, that she is your sister, and should be hapily married if
at all. Also she needs one with a strong hand to control her. And such
are not easy to find. You must not ruin her Life."

Considering the fatal truth of that, is it any wonder that, on
contemplateing the events that folowed, I am ready to cry, with the
great poet Hood: 1835-1874: whose numerous works we studied during the
spring term:

Alas, I have walked through life
To heedless where I trod;
Nay, helping to trampel my fellow worm,
And fill the burial sod.



II


If I were to write down all the surging thoughts that filled my brain
this would have to be a Novel instead of a Short Story. And I am not one
who beleives in beginning the life of Letters with a long work. I think
one should start with breif Romanse. For is not Romanse itself but
breif, the thing of an hour, at least to the Other Sex?

Women and girls, having no interest outside their hearts, such as
baseball and hockey and earning saleries, are more likely to hug Romanse
to their breasts, until it is finaly drowned in their tears.

I pass over the next few days, therfore, mearly stating that my AFFAIRE
DE COUER went on rapidly, and that Leila was sulkey AND HAD NO MALE
VISITORS. On the day after the Ball Game Tom took me for a walk, and in
a corner of the park, he took my hand and held it for quite a while.
He said he had never been a hand-holder, but he guessed it was time to
begin. Also he remarked that my noze need not worry me, as it exactly
suited my face and nature.

"How does it suit my nature?" I asked.

"It's--well, it's cute."

"I do not care about being cute, Tom," I said ernestly. "It is a word I
despize."

"Cute means kissible, Bab!" he said, in an ardent manner.

"I don't beleive in kissing."

"Well," he observed, "there is kissing and kissing."

But a nurse with a baby in a perambulater came along just then and
nothing happened worth recording. As soon as she had passed, however,
I mentioned that kissing was all right if one was engaged, but not
otherwise. And he said:

"But we are, aren't we?"

Although understood before, it had now come in full force. I, who had
been but Barbara Archibald before, was now engaged. Could it be I who
heard my voice saying, in a low tone, the "yes" of Destiny? It was!

We then went to the corner drug-store and had some soda, although
forbiden by my Familey because of city water being used. How strange
to me to recall that I had once thought the Clerk nice-looking, and had
even purchaced things there, such as soap and chocolate, in order to
speak a few words to him!

I was engaged, dear Reader, but not yet kissed. Tom came into our
vestabule with me, and would doubtless have done so when no one was
passing, but that George opened the door suddenly.

However, what difference, when we had all the rest of our Lives to kiss
in? Or so I then considered.

Carter Brooks came to dinner that night because his people were out of
town, and I think he noticed that I looked mature and dignafied, for he
stared at me a lot. And father said:

"Bab, you're not eating. Is it possable that that boarding school hollow
of yours is filling up?"

One's Familey is apt to translate one's finest Emotions into terms of
food and drink. Yet could I say that it was my Heart and not my Stomache
that was full? I could not.

During dinner I looked at Leila and wondered how she could be married
off. For until so I would continue to be but a Child, and not allowed
to be engaged or anything. I thought if she would eat some starches
it would help, she being pretty but thin. I therfore urged her to eat
potatos and so on, because of evening dress and showing her coller
bones, but she was quite nasty.

"Eat your dinner," she said in an unfraternal maner, "and stop watching
me. They're MY bones."

"I have no intention of being criticle," I said. "And they are your
bones, although not a matter to brag about. But I was only thinking, if
you were fater and had a permanant wave put in your hair, because one of
the girls did and it hardly broke off at all."

She then got up and flung down her napkin.

"Mother!" she said. "Am I to stand this sort of thing indefinately?
Because if I am I shall go to France and scrub floors in a Hospitle."

Well, I reflected, that would be almost as good as having her get
married. Besides being a good chance to marry over there, the unaform
being becoming to most, especialy of Leila's tipe.

That night, in the drawing room, while Sis sulked and father was out and
mother was ofering the cook more money to go to the country, I said to
Carter Brooks:

"Why don't you stop hanging round, and make her marry you?"

"I'd like to know what's running about in that mad head of yours, Bab,"
he said. "Of course if you say so I'll try, but don't count to much on
it. I don't beleive she'll have me. But why this unseemly haste?"

So I told him, and he understood perfectly, although I did not say that
I had already plited my troth.

"Of course," he said. "If that fails there is another method of aranging
things, although you may not care to have the Funeral Baked Meats set
fourth to grace the Marriage Table. If she refuses me, we might become
engaged. You and I."

To proposals in one day. Ye gods!

I was obliged therfore to tell him I was already engaged, and he looked
very queer, especialy when I told him to whom it was.

"Pup!" he said, in a manner which I excused because of his natural
feelings at being preceded. "And of course this is the real thing?"

"I am not one to change easily, Carter" I said. "When I give I give
freely. A thing like this, with me, is to Eternaty, and even beyond."

He is usualy most polite, but he got up then and said:

"Well, I'm dammed."

He went away soon after, and left Sis and me to sit alone, not speaking,
because when she is angry she will not speak to me for days at a time.
But I found a Magazine picture of a Duchess in a nurse's dress and
wearing a fringe, which is English for bangs, and put it on her dressing
table.

I felt that this was subtile and would sink in.

The next day Jane came around early.

"There's a sail on down town, Bab," she said. "Don't you want to begin
laying away underclothes for your TROUSEAU? You can't begin to soon,
because it takes such a lot."

I have no wish to reflect on Jane in this story. She meant well. But she
knew I had decided to buy an automobile, saying nothing to the Familey
until to late, when I had learned to drive it and it could not be
returned. Also she knew my Income, which was not princly although
suficient.

But she urged me to take my Check Book and go to the sail.

Now, if I have a weakness, it is for fine under things, with ribbon of
a pale pink and everything maching. Although I spent but fifty-eight
dollars and sixty-five cents on the TROUSEAU that day, I felt uneasy,
especialy as, just afterwards, I saw in a window a costume for a woman
CHAUFFEUR, belted lether coat and leggings, skirt and lether cap.

I gave a check for it also, and on going home hid my Check Book, as
Hannah was always snooping around and watching how much I spent. But
luckaly we were packing for the country, and she did not find it.

During that evening I reflected about marrying Leila off, as the Familey
was having a dinner and I was sent a tray to my Chamber, consisting of
scrambeled eggs, baked potatos and junket, which considering that I was
engaged and even then colecting my TROUSEAU, was to juvenile for words.

I decided this: that Leila was my sister and therfore bound to me by
ties of Blood and Relationship. She must not be married to anyone,
therfore, whom she did not love or at least respect. I would not doom
her to be unhappy.

Now I have a qualaty which is well known at school, and frequently used
to obtain holadays and so on. It may be Magnatism, it may be Will. I
have a very strong Will, having as a child had a way of lying on the
floor and kicking my feet if thwarted. In school, by fixing my eyes
ridgidly on the teacher, I have been able to make her do as I wish, such
as not calling on me when unprepared, et cetera.

Full well I know the danger of such a Power, unless used for good.

I now made up my mind to use this Will, or Magnatism, on Leila, she
being unsuspicious at the time and thinking that the thought of Marriage
was her own, and no one else's.

Being still awake when the Familey came upstairs, I went into her room
and experamented while she was taking down her hair.

"Well?" she said at last. "You needn't stare like that. I can't do my
hair this way without a Swich."

"I was merely thinking," I said in a lofty tone.

"Then go and think in bed."

"Does it or does it not concern you as to what I was thinking?" I
demanded.

"It doesn't greatly concern me," she replied, wraping her hair around a
kid curler, "but I darsay I know what it was. It's written all over
you in letters a foot high. You'd like me to get married and out of the
way."

I was exultent yet terrafied at this result of my Experament. Already! I
said to my wildly beating heart. And if thus in five minutes what in the
entire summer?

On returning to my Chamber I spent a pleasant hour planing my
maid-of-honor gown, which I considered might be blue to mach my eyes,
with large pink hat and carrying pink flours.

The next morning father and I breakfasted alone, and I said to him:

"In case of festivaty in the Familey, such as a Wedding, is my Allowence
to cover clothes and so on for it?"

He put down his paper and searched me with a peircing glanse. Although
pleasant after ten A. M. he is not realy paternal in the early morning,
and when Mademoiselle was still with us was quite hateful to her at
times, asking her to be good enough not to jabber French at him untill
evening when he felt stronger.

"Whose Wedding?" he said.

"Well," I said. "You've got to Daughters and we might as well look
ahead."

"I intend to have to Daughters," he said, "for some time to come. And
while we're on the subject, Bab, I've got somthing to say to you. Don't
let that romantic head of yours get filled up with Sweethearts, because
you are still a little girl, with all your airs. If I find any boys
mooning around here, I'll--I'll shoot them."

Ye gods! How intracate my life was becoming! I engaged and my masculine
parent convercing in this homacidal manner! I withdrew to my room and
there, when Jane Raleigh came later, told her the terrable news.

"Only one thing is to be done, Jane," I said, my voice shaking. "Tom
must be warned."

"Call him up," said Jane, "and tell him to keep away."

But this I dare not do.

"Who knows, Jane," I observed, in a forlorn manner, "but that the
telephone is watched? They must suspect. But how? HOW?"

Jane was indeed a FIDUS A CHATES. She went out to the drug store and
telephoned to Tom, being careful not to mention my name, because of the
clerk at the soda fountain listening, saying merely to keep away from a
Certain Person for a time as it was dangerous. She then merely mentioned
the word "revolver" as meaning nothing to the clerk but a great deal to
Tom. She also aranged a meeting in the Park at 3 P. M. as being the
hour when father signed his mail before going to his Club to play bridge
untill dinner.

Our meeting was a sad one. How could it be otherwise, when to loving
Hearts are forbiden to beat as one, or even to meet? And when one or the
other is constantly saying:

"Turn your back. There is some one I know coming!"

Or:

"There's the Peters's nurse, and she's the worst talker you ever heard
of." And so on.

At one time Tom would have been allowed to take out their Roadster, but
unfortunately he had been forbiden to do so, owing to having upset it
while taking his Grandmother Gray for an airing, and was not to drive
again until she could walk without cruches.

"Won't your people let you take out a car?" he asked. "Every girl ought
to know how to drive, in case of war or the CHAUFFEUR leaving----"

"----or taking a Grandmother for an airing!" I said coldly. Because I
did not care to be criticized when engaged only a few hours.

However, after we had parted with mutual Protestations, I felt the
desire that every engaged person of the Femanine Sex always feels,
to apear perfect to the one she is engaged to. I therfore considered
whether to ask Smith to teach me to drive one of our cars or to purchace
one of my own, and be responsable to no one if muddy, or arrested for
speeding, or any other Vicissatude.

On the next day Jane and I looked at automobiles, starting with ones I
could not aford so as to clear the air, as Jane said. At last we found
one I could aford. Also its lining matched my costume, being tan. It was
but six hundred dollars, having been more but turned in by a lady after
three hundred miles because she was of the kind that never learns to
drive but loses its head during an emergency and forgets how to stop,
even though a Human Life be in its path.

The Salesman said that he could tell at a glanse that I was not that
sort, being calm in danger and not likly to chase a chicken into a fense
corner and murder it, as some do when excited.

Jane and I consulted, for buying a car is a serious matter and not to
be done lightly, especialy when one has not consulted one's Familey and
knows not where to keep the car when purchaced. It is not like a dog,
which I have once or twice kept in a clandestine manner in the Garage,
because of flees in the house.

"The trouble is," Jane said, "that if you don't take it some one will,
and you will have to get one that costs more."

True indeed, I reflected, with my Check Book in my hand.

Ah, would that some power had whispered in my ear "No. By purchacing
the above car you are endangering that which lies near to your Heart and
Mind. Be warned in time."

But no sign came. No warning hand was outstretched to put my Check Book
back in my pocket book. I wrote the Check and sealed my doom.

How weak is human nature! It is terrable to remember the rapture of that
moment, and compare it with my condition now, with no Allowence, with
my faith gone and my heart in fragments. And with, alas, another year of
school.

As we were going to the country in but a few days, I aranged to leave
my new Possesion, merely learning to drive it meanwhile, and having my
first lesson the next day.

"Dearest," Jane said as we left. "I am thriled to the depths. The way
you do things is wonderfull. You have no fear, none whatever. With
your father's Revenge hanging over you, and to secrets, you are calm.
Perfectly calm."

"I fear I am reckless, Jane," I said, wistfully. "I am not brave. I am
reckless, and also desparate."

"You poor darling!" she said, in a broken voice. "When I think of all
you are suffering, and then see your smile, my Heart aches for you."

We then went in and had some ice cream soda, which I paid for, Jane
having nothing but a dollar, which she needed for a manacure. I also
bought a key ring for Tom, feeling that he should have somthing of mine,
a token, in exchange for the Frat pin.

I shall pass over lightly the following week, during which the Familey
was packing for the country and all the servants were in a bad humer.
In the mornings I took lessons driving the car, which I called the Arab,
from the well-known song, which we have on the phonograph;

From the Dessert I come to thee,
On my Arab shod with fire.

The instructer had not heard the song, but he said it was a good name,
because very likly no one else would think of having it.

"It sounds like a love song," he observed.

"It is," I replied, and gave him a steady glanse. Because, if one realy
loves, it is silly to deny it.

"Long ways to a Dessert, isn't it?" he inquired.

"A Dessert may be a place, or it may be a thirsty and emty place in the
Soul," I replied. "In my case it is Soul, not terratory."