Bab: A Sub Deb

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


But I saw that he did not understand.

How few there are who realy understand! How many of us, as I, stand
thirsty in the market place, holding out a cup for a kind word or
for some one who sees below the surface, and recieve nothing but
indiference!

On Tuesday the Grays went to their country house, and Tom came over to
say good-bye. Jane had told him he could come, as the Familey would be
out.

The thought of the coming seperation, although but for four days, caused
me deep greif. Although engaged for only a short time, already I felt
how it feels to know that in the vicinaty is some one dearer than Life
itself. I felt I must speak to some one, so I observed to Hannah that I
was most unhappy, but not to ask me why. I was dressing at the time, and
she was hooking me up.

"Unhappy!" she said, "with a thousand dollars a year, and naturaly curly
hair! You ought to be ashamed, Miss Bab."

"What is money, or even hair?" I asked, "when one's Heart aches?"

"I guess it's your stomache and not your Heart," she said. "With all the
candy you eat. If you'd take a dose of magnezia to-night, Miss Bab, with
some orange juice to take the taste away, you'd feel better right off."

I fled from my chamber.

I have frequently wondered how it would feel to be going down a
staircase, dressed in one's best frock, low neck and no sleaves, to some
loved one lurking below, preferably in evening clothes, although not
necesarily so. To move statuesqly and yet tenderly, apearing indiferent
but inwardly seathing, while below pasionate eyes looked up as I floated
down.

However, Tom had not put on evening dress, his clothes being all packed.
He was taking one of father's cigars as I entered the library, and he
looked very tall and adolesent, although thin. He turned and seeing me,
observed:

"Great Scott, Bab! Why the raiment?"

"For you," I said in a low tone.

"Well, it makes a hit with me all right," he said.

And came toward me.

When Jane Raleigh was first kissed by a member of the Other Sex, while
in a hammick, she said she hated to be kissed until he did it, and then
she liked it. I at the time had considered Jane as flirtatous and as
probably not hating it at all. But now I knew she was right, for as I
saw Tom coming toward me after laying fatther's cigar on the piano, I
felt that I COULD NOT BEAR IT.

And this I must say, here and now. I do not like kissing. Even then,
in that first embrase of to, I was worried because I could smell the
varnish burning on the Piano. I therfore permited but one salute on the
cheek and no more before removing the cigar, which had burned a large
spot.

"Look here," he said, in a stern manner, "are we engaged or aren't we?
Because I'd like to know."

"If you are to demonstrative, no!" I replied, firmly.

"If you call that a kiss, I don't."

"It sounded like one," I said. "I suppose you know more than I do what
is a kiss and what is not. But I'll tell you this--there is no use
keeping our amatory affairs to ourselves and then kissing so the Butler
thinks the fire whistle is blowing."

We then sat down, and I gave him the key ring, which he said was a
dandy. I then told him about getting Sis married and out of the way. He
thought it was a good idea.

"You'll never have a chance as long as she's around," he observed,
smoking father's cigar at intervals. "They're afraid of you, and that's
flat. It's your Eyes. That's what got me, anyhow." He blue a smoke ring
and sat back with his legs crossed. "Funny, isn't it?" he said. "Here
we are, snug as weavils in a cotton thing-un-a-gig, and only a week ago
there was nothing between us but to brick walls. Hot in here, don't you
think?"

"Only a week!" I said. "Tom, I've somthing to tell you. That is the nice
part of being engaged--to tell things that one would otherwise bury in
one's own Bosom. I shall have no secrets from you from henceforward."

So I told him about the car and how we could drive together in it, and
no one would know it was mine, although I would tell the Familey later
on, when to late to return it. He said little, but looked at me and
kept on smoking, and was not as excited as I had expected, although
interested.

But in the midst of my Narative he rose quickly and observed:

"Bab, I'm poizoned!"

I then perceived that he was pale and hagard. I rose to my feet, and
thinking it might be the cigar, I asked him if he would care for a peice
of chocolate cake to take the taste away. But to my greif he refused
very snappishly and without a Farewell slamed out of the house, leaving
his hat and so forth in the hall.

A bitter night ensued. For I shall admit that terrable thoughts filled
my mind, although how perpetrated I knew not. Would those who loved me
stoop to such depths as to poizon my afianced? And if so, whom?

The very thought was sickning.

I told Jane the next morning, but she pretended to beleive that the
cigar had been to strong for him, and that I should remember that,
although very good-hearted, he was a mere child. But, if poizon, she
suggested Hannah.

That day, although unerved from anxiety, I took the Arab out alone,
having only Jane with me. Except that once I got into reverce instead
of low geer, and broke a lamp on a Gentleman behind, I had little or no
trouble, although having one or to narrow escapes owing to putting my
foot on the gas throttle instead of the brake.

It was when being backed off the pavment by to Policemen and a man from
a milk wagon, after one of the aforsaid mistakes, that I first saw he
who was to bring such wrechedness to me.

Jane had got out to see how much milk we had spilt--we had struck the
milk wagon--and I was getting out my check book, because the man was
very nasty and insisted on having my name, when I first saw him. He had
stopped and was looking at the gutter, which was full of milk. Then he
looked at me.

"How much damages does he want?" he said in a respectful tone.

"Twenty dollars," I replied, not considering it flirting to merely reply
in this manner.

The Stranger then walked over to the milkman and said:

"A very little spilt milk goes a long way. Five dollars is plenty for
that and you know it."

"How about me getting a stitch in my chin, and having to pay for that?"

I beleive I have not said that the milk man was cut in the chin by a
piece of a bottle.

"Ten, then," said my friend in need.

When it was all over, and I had given two dollars to the old woman who
had been in the milk wagon and was knocked out although only bruized, I
went on, thinking no more about the Stranger, and almost running into my
father, who did not see me.

That afternoon I realized that I must face the state of afairs, and I
added up the Checks I had made out. Ye gods! Of all my Money there now
remaind for the ensuing year but two hundred and twenty nine dollars and
forty five cents.

I now realized that I had been extravagant, having spent so much in six
days. Although I did not regard the Arab as such, because of saving
car fare and half soleing shoes. Nor the TROUSEAU, as one must have
clothing. But facial masage and manacures and candy et cetera I felt had
been wastefull.

At dinner that night mother said:

"Bab, you must get yourself some thin frocks. You have absolutely
nothing. And Hannah says you have bought nothing. After all a thousand
dollars is a thousand dollars. You can have what you ought to have.
Don't be to saving."

"I have not the interest in clothes I once had, mother" I replied. "If
Leila will give me her old things I will use them."

"Bab!" mother said, with a peircing glanse, "go upstairs and bring down
your Check Book."

I turned pale with fright, but father said:

"No, my dear. Suppose we let this thing work itself out. It is Barbara's
money, and she must learn."

That night, when I was in bed and trying to divide $229.45 by 12 months,
father came in and sat down on the bed.

"There doesn't happen to be anything you want to say to me, I suppose,
Bab?" he inquired in a gentle tone.

Although not a weeping person, shedding but few tears even when punished
in early years, his kind tone touched my Heart, and made me lachrymoze.
Such must always be the feelings of those who decieve.

But, although bent, I was not yet broken. I therfore wept on in silence
while father patted my back.

"Because," he said, "while I am willing to wait until you are ready,
when things begin to get to thick I want you to know that I'm around,
the same as usual."

He kissed the back of my neck, which was all that was visable, and went
to the door. From there he said, in a low tone:

"And by the way, Bab, I think, since you bought me the Tie, it would be
rather nice to get your mother somthing also. How about it? Violets, you
know, or--or somthing."

Ye gods! Violets at five dollars a hundred. But I agreed. I then sat up
in bed and said:

"Father, what would you say if you knew some one was decieving you?"

"Well," he said, "I am an old Bird and hard to decieve. A good many
people think they can do it, however, and now and then some one gets
away with it."

I felt softened and repentent. Had he but patted me once more, I would
have told all. But he was looking for a match for his cigar, and the
opportunaty passed.

"Well," he said, "close up that active brain of yours for the night,
Bab, and here are to `don'ts' to sleep on. Don't break your neck in--in
any way. You're a reckless young Lady. And don't elope with the first
moony young idiot who wants to hold your hand. There will quite likly be
others."

Others! How heartless! How cynical! Were even those I love best to
worldly to understand a monogamous Nature?

When he had gone out, I rose to hide my Check Book in the crown of an
old hat, away from Hannah. Then I went to the window and glansed out.
There was no moon, but the stars were there as usual, over the roof
of that emty domacile next door, whence all life had fled to the
neighborhood of the Country Club.

But a strange thing caught my eye and transfixed it. There on the
street, looking up at our house, now in the first throes of sleep, was
the Stranger I had seen that afternoon when I had upset the milk wagon
against the Park fense.


III


I shall now remove the Familey to the country, which is easier on paper
than in the flesh, owing to having to take china, silver, bedding and
edables. Also porch furnature and so on.

Sis acted very queer while we were preparing. She sat in her room and
knited, and was not at home to Callers, although there were not many
owing to summer and every one away. When she would let me in, which
was not often, as she said I made her head ache, I tried to turn her
thoughts to marriage or to nursing at the War, which was for her own
good, since she is of the kind who would never be happy leading a simple
life, but should be married.

But alas for all my hopes. She said, on the day before we left, while
packing her jewel box:

"You might just as well give up trying to get rid of me, Barbara.
Because I do not intend to marry any one."

"Very well, Leila," I said, in a cold tone. "Of course it matters not to
me, because I can be kept in school untill I am thirty, and never come
out or have a good time, and no one will care. But when you are an old
woman and have not employed your natural function of having children to
suport you in Age, don't say I did not warn you."

"Oh, you'll come out all right," she said, in a brutal manner. "You'll
come out like a sky rocket. You'd be as impossable to supress as a
boil."

Carter Brooks came around that afternoon and we played marbels in the
drawing room with moth balls, as the rug was up. It was while sitting
on the floor eating some candy he had brought that I told him that there
was no use hanging around, as Leila was not going to marry. He took it
bravely, and said that he saw nothing to do but to wait for some of the
younger crowd to grow up, as the older ones had all refused him.

"By the way," he said. "I thought I saw you running a car the other
day. You were chasing a fox terier when I saw you, but I beleive the dog
escaped."

I looked at him and I saw that, although smiling, he was one who could
be trusted, even to the Grave.

"Carter," I said. "It was I, although when you saw me I know not, as
dogs are always getting in the way."

I then told him about the pony cart, and the Allowence, and saving car
fare. Also that I felt that I should have some pleasure, even if
SUB ROSA, as the expression is. But I told him also that I disliked
decieving my dear parents, who had raised me from infancy and through
meazles, whooping cough and shingles.

"Do you mean to say," he said in an astounded voice, "that you have
BOUGHT that car?"

"I have. And paid for it."

Being surprized he put a moth ball into his mouth, instead of a gum
drop.

"Well," he said, "you'll have to tell them. You can't hide it in a
closet, you know, or under the bed."

"And let them take it away? Never."

My tone was firm, and he saw that I meant it, especialy when I explained
that there would be nothing to do in the country, as mother and Sis
would play golf all day, and I was not allowed at the Club, and that the
Devil finds work for idle hands.

"But where in the name of good sense are you going to keep it?" he
inquired, in a wild tone.

"I have been thinking about that," I said. "I may have to buy a portible
Garage and have it set up somwhere."

"Look here," he said, "you give me a little time on this, will you? I'm
not naturaly a quick thinker, and somhow my brain won't take it all in
just yet. I suppose there's no use telling you not to worry, because you
are not the worrying kind."

How little he knew of me, after years of calls and conversation!

Just before he left he said: "Bab, just a word of advise for you. Pick
your Husband, when the time comes, with care. He ought to have the
solidaty of an elephant and the mental agilaty of a flee. But no
imagination, or he'll die a lunatic."

The next day he telephoned and said that he had found a place for the
car in the country, a shed on the Adams' place, which was emty, as the
Adams's were at Lakewood. So that was fixed.

Now my plan about the car was this: Not to go on indefanitely decieving
my parents, but to learn to drive the car as an expert. Then, when they
were about to say that I could not have one as I would kill myself in
the first few hours, to say:

"You wrong me. I have bought a car, and driven it for----days, and have
killed no one, or injured any one beyond bruizes and one stitch."

I would then disapear down the drive, returning shortly in the Arab,
which, having been used----days, could not be returned.

All would have gone as aranged had it not been for the fatal question of
Money.

Owing to having run over some broken milk bottles on the ocasion I have
spoken of, I was obliged to buy a new tire at thirty-five dollars.
I also had a bill of eleven dollars for gasoline, and a fine of ten
dollars for speeding, which I paid at once for fear of a Notice being
sent home.

This took fifty-six dollars more, and left me but $183.45 for the rest
of the year, $15.28 a month to dress on and pay all expences. To add
to my troubles mother suddenly became very fussy about my clothing
and insisted that I purchace a new suit, hat and so on, which cost one
hundred dollars and left me on the verge of penury.

Is it surprizing that, becoming desparate, I seized at any straw,
however intangable?

I paid a man five dollars to take the Arab to the country and put it in
the aforsaid shed, afterwards hiding the key under a stone outside. But,
although needing relaxation and pleasure during those sad days, I did
not at first take it out, as I felt that another tire would ruin me.

Besides, they had the Pony Cart brought every day, and I had to take
it out, pretending enjoyment I could not feel, since acustomed to forty
miles an hour and even more at times.

I at first invited Tom to drive with me in the Cart, thinking that
merely to be together would be pleasure enough. But at last I was
compeled to face the truth. Although protesting devotion until death,
Tom did not care for the Cart, considering it juvenile for a college
man, and also to small for his legs.

But at last he aranged a plan, which was to take the Cart as far as the
shed, leave it there, and take out the car. This we did frequently, and
I taught Tom how to drive it.

I am not one to cry over spilt milk. But I am one to confess when I have
made a mistake. I do not beleive in laying the blame on Providence when
it belongs to the Other Sex, either.

It was on going down to the shed one morning and finding a lamp gone and
another tire hanging in tatters that I learned the Truth. He who should
have guarded my interests with his very Life, including finances, had
been taking the Arab out in the evenings when I was confined to the
bosom of my Familey, and using up gasoline et cetera besides riding with
whom I knew not.

Eighty-three dollars and 45 cents less thirty-five dollars for a tire
and a bill for gasoline in the village of eight dollars left me, for
the balance of the year, but $40.45 or $3.37 a month! And still a lamp
missing.

It was terrable.

I sat on the running board and would have shed tears had I not been to
angry.

It was while sitting thus, and deciding to return the Frat pin as
costing to much in gasoline and patients, that I percieved Tom coming
down the road. His hand was tied up in a bandige, and his whole
apearance was of one who wishes to be forgiven.

Why, oh, why, must women of my Sex do all the forgiving?

He stood in the doorway so I could see the bandige and would be sorry
for him. But I apeared not to notice him.

"Well?" he said.

I was silent.

"Now look here," he went on, "I'm darned lucky to be here and not dead,
young lady. And if you are going to make a fuss, I'm going away and join
the Ambulance in France."

"They'd better not let you drive a car if they care anything about it,"
I said, coldly.

"That's it! Go to it! Give me the Devil, of course. Why should you care
that I have a broken arm, or almost?"

"Well," I said, in a cutting manner, "broken bones mend themselves and
do not have to be taken to a Garage, where they charge by the hour and
loaf most of the time. May I ask, if not to much trouble to inform me,
whom you took out in my car last night? Because I'd like to send her
your pin. I'd go on wearing it, but it's to expencive."

"Oh, very well," he said. He then brought out my key ring, although
unable to take the keys off because of having but one hand. "If you're
as touchy as all that, and don't care for the real story, I'm through.
That's all."

I then began to feel remorceful. I am of a forgiving Nature naturaly and
could not forget that but yesterday he had been tender and loving, and
had let me drive almost half the time. I therfore said:

"If you can explain I will listen. But be breif. I am in no mood for
words."

Well, the long and short of it was that I was wrong, and should not
have jumped to conclusions. Because the Gray's house had been robbed the
night before, taking all the silver and Mr. Gray's dress suit, as well
as shirts and so on, and as their CHAUFFEUR had taken one of the maids
out INCOGNITO and gone over a bank, returning at seven A. M. in a hired
hack, there was no way to follow the theif. So Tom had taken my car
and would have caught him, having found Mr. Gray's trowsers on a fense,
although torn, but that he ran into a tree because of going very fast
and skiding.

He would have gone through the wind-shield, but that it was down.

I was by that time mollafied and sorry I had been so angry, especialy as
Tom said:

"Father ofered a hundred dollars reward for his capture, and as you have
been adviseing me to save money, I went after the hundred."

At this thought, that my FIANCEE had endangered his hand and the rest of
his person in order to acquire money for our ultamate marriage, my anger
died.

I therfore submitted to an embrase, and washed the car, which was
covered with mud, as Tom had but one hand and that holding a cigarette.

Now and then, Dear Reader, when not to much worried with finances, I
look back and recall those halycon days when Love had its place in my
life, filling it to the exclusion of even suficient food, and rendering
me immune to the questions of my Familey, who wanted to know how I spent
my time.

Oh, magic eyes of afection, which see the beloved object as containing
all the virtues, including strong features and intellagence! Oh, dear
dead Dreams, when I saw myself going down the church isle in white satin
and Dutchess lace! O Tempora O Mores! Farewell.

What would have happened, I wonder, if father had not discharged Smith
that night for carrying passengers to the Club from the railway station
in our car, charging them fifty cents each and scraching the varnish
with golf clubs?

I know not.

But it gave me the idea that ultamately ruined my dearest hopes. This
was it. If Smith could get fifty cents each for carrying passengers,
why not I? I was unknown to most, having been expatriated at School for
several years. But also there were to stations, one which the summer
people used, and one which was used by the so-called locals.

I was desparate. Money I must have, whether honestly or not, for mother
had bought me some more things and sent me the bill.

"Because you will not do it yourself," she said. "And I cannot have it
said that we neglect you, Barbara."

The bill was ninety dollars! Ye gods, were they determined to ruin me?

With me to think is to act. I am always like that. I always, alas, feel
that the thing I have thought of is right, and there is no use arguing
about it. This is well known in my Institution of Learning, where I am
called impetuus and even rash.

That night, my Familey being sunk in sweet slumber and untroubled by
finances, I made a large card which said: "For Hire." I had at first
made it "For Higher," but saw that this was wrong and corected it.
Although a natural speller, the best of us make mistakes.

I did not, the next day, confide in my betrothed, knowing that he would
object to my earning Money in any way, unless perhaps in large amounts,
such as the stock market, or, as at present, in Literature. But being
one to do as I make up my mind to, I took the car to the station, and
in three hours made one dollar and a fifteen cent tip from the Gray's
butler, who did not know me as I wore large gogles.

I was now embarked on a Commercial Enterprize, and happier than for
days. Although having one or to narrow escapes, such as father getting
off the train at my station instead of the other, but luckily getting a
cinder in his eye and unable to see until I drove away quickly. And one
day Carter Brooks got off and found me changing a tire and very dusty
and worried, because a new tube cost five dollars and so far I had made
but six-fifteen.

I did not know he was there until he said:

"Step back and let me do that, Bab."

He was all dressed, but very firm. So I let him and he looked terrible
when finished.

"Now" he said at last, "jump in and take me somewhere near the Club. And
tell me how this happened."

"I am a bankrupt, Carter," I responded in a broken tone. "I have sold my
birthright for a mess of porridge."

"Good heavens!" he said. "You don't mean you've spent the whole
business?"

I then got my Check Book from the tool chest, and held it out to him.
Also the unpaid bills. I had but $40.45 in the Bank and owed $90.00 for
the things mother had bought.

"Everything has gone wrong," I admitted. "I love this car, but it is as
much expence as a large familey and does not get better with age, as
a familey does, which grows up and works or gets married. And Leila is
getting to be a Man-hater and acts very strange most of the time."

Here I almost wept, and probably would have, had he not said:

"Here! Stop that, Or I----" He stopped and then said: "How about the
engagement, Bab? Is it a failure to?"

"We are still plited," I said. "Of course we do not agree about some
things, but the time to fuss is now, I darsay, and not when to late,
with perhaps a large familey and unable to seperate."

"What sort of things?"

"Well," I said, "he thinks that he ought to play around with other girls
so no one will suspect, but he does not like it when I so much as sit in
a hammick with a member of the Other Sex."

"Bab," he said in an ernest tone, "that, in twenty words, is the whole
story of all the troubles between what you call the Sexes. The only
diference between Tommy Gray and me is that I would not want to play
around with any one else if--well, if engaged to anyone like you. And I
feel a lot like looking him up and giving him a good thrashing."

He paid me fifty cents and a quarter tip, and offered, although poor, to
lend me some Money. But I refused.

"I have made my bed," I said, "and I shall occupy it, Carter. I can have
no companion in misfortune."

It was that night that another house near the Club was robed, and
everything taken, including groceries and a case of champane. The Summer
People got together the next day at the Club and offered a reward of two
hundred dollars, and engaged a night watchman with a motor-cycle, which
I considered silly, as one could hear him coming when to miles off, and
any how he spent most of the time taking the maids for rides, and broke
an arm for one of them.