Bab: A Sub Deb

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


"Let's go in and play with the children, Leila," he said. "I'm feeling
young today."

Which was perfectly silly. He is not Methuzala. Although thinking
himself so, or almost.

Well, they went into the drawing room. Elaine Adams was there waiting
for me, and Betty Anderson and Jane Raleigh. And I hadn't been in the
room five minutes before I knew that they all knew. It turned out later
that Hannah was engaged to the Adams's butler, and she had told him,
and he had told Elaine's governess, who is still there and does the
ordering, and Elaine sends her stockings home for her to darn.

Sis had told Carter, too, I saw that, and among them they had rather
a good time. Carter sat down at the piano and struck a few chords,
chanting "My Love is like a white, white rose."

"Only you know" he said, turning to me, "that's wrong. It ought to be a
`red, red rose.'"

"Certainly not. The word is `white.'"

"Oh, is it?" he said, with his head on one side. "Strange that both you
and Harold should have got it wrong."

I confess to a feeling of uneasiness at that moment.

Tea came, and Carter insisted on pouring.

"I do so love to pour!" he said. "Really, after a long day's shopping,
tea is the only thing that keeps me going until dinner. Cream or lemon,
Leila dear?"

"Both," Sis said in an absent manner, with her eyes on me. "Barbara,
come into the den a moment. I want to show you mother's Xmas gift."

She stocked in ahead of me, and lifted a book from the table. Under it
was the photograph.

"You wretched child!" she said. "Where did you get that?"

"That's not your affair, is it?"

"I'm going to make it my affair. Did he give it to you?"

"Have you read what's written on it?"

"Where did you meet him?"

I hesitated because I am by nature truthfull. But at last I said:

"At school."

"Oh," she said slowly. "So you met him at school! What was he doing
there? Teaching elocution?"

"Elocution!"

"This is Harold, is it?"

"Certainly." Well, he WAS Harold, if I chose to call him that, wasn't
he? Sis gave a little sigh.

"You're quite hopeless, Bab. And, although I'm perfectly sure you want
me to take the thing to mother, I'll do nothing of the sort."

SHE FLUNG IT INTO THE FIRE. I was raging. It had cost me a dollar. It
was quite brown when I got it out, and a corner was burned off. But I
got it.

"I'll thank you to burn your own things," I said with dignaty. And I
went back to the drawing room.

The girls and Carter Brooks were talking in an undertone when I got
there. I knew it was about me. And Jane came over to me and put her arm
around me.

"You poor thing!" she said. "Just fight it out. We're all with you."

"I'm so helpless, Jane." I put all the despair I could into my voice.
For after all, if they were going to talk about my private Affairs
behind my back, I felt that they might as well have something to talk
about. As Jane's second couzin once removed is in this school and as
Jane will probably write her all about it, I hope this Theme is read
aloud in class, so she will get it all straight. Jane is imaginative and
may have a wrong idea of things.

"Don't give in. Let them bully you. They can't really do anything. And
they're scared. Leila is positively sick."

"I've promised to write and break it off," I said in a tence tone.

"If he really loves you," said Jane, "the letter won't matter." There
was a thrill in her voice. Had I not been uneasy at my deciet, I to
would have thrilled.

Some fresh muffins came in just then and I was starveing. But I waved
them away, and stood staring at the fire.

I am writing all of this as truthfully as I can. I am not defending
myself. What I did I was driven to, as any one can see. It takes a real
shock to make the average Familey wake up to the fact that the youngest
daughter is not the Familey baby at seventeen. All I was doing was
furnishing the shock. If things turned out badly, as they did, it
was because I rather overdid the thing. That is all. My motives were
perfectly ireproachible.

Well, they fell on the muffins like pigs, and I could hardly stand it.
So I wandered into the den, and it occurred to me to write the letter
then. I felt that they all expected me to do something anyhow.

If I had never written the wretched letter things would be better now.
As I say, I overdid. But everything had gone so smoothly all day that I
was decieved. But the real reason was a new set of furs. I had secured
the dresses and the promise of the necklace on a Poem and a Photograph,
and I thought that a good love letter might bring a muff. It all shows
that it does not do to be grasping.

HAD I NOT WRITTEN THE LETTER, THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO TRADGEDY.

But I wrote it and if I do say it, it was a LETTER. I commenced it
"Darling," and I said I was mad to see him, and that I would always love
him. But I told him that the Familey objected to him, and that this was
to end everything between us. They had started the phonograph in the
library, and were playing "The Rosary." So I ended with a verse from
that. It was really a most affecting letter. I almost wept over it
myself, because, if there had been a Harold, it would have broken his
Heart.

Of course I meant to give it to Hannah to mail, and she would give it to
mother. Then, after the family had read it and it had got in its work,
including the set of furs, they were welcome to mail it. It would go
to the Dead Letter Office, since there was no Harold. It could not come
back to me, for I had only signed it "Barbara." I had it all figured out
carefully. It looked as if I had everything to gain, including the furs,
and nothing to lose. Alas, how little I knew!

"The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglay." Burns.

Carter Brooks ambled into the room just as I sealed it and stood gazing
down at me.

"You're quite a Person these days, Bab," he said. "I suppose all the
customary Xmas kisses are being saved this year for what's his name."

"I don't understand you."

"For Harold. You know, Bab, I think I could bear up better if his name
wasn't Harold."

"I don't see how it concerns you," I responded.

"Don't you? With me crazy about you for lo, these many years! First as
a baby, then as a sub-sub-deb, and now as a sub-deb. Next year, when you
are a real Debutante----"

"You've concealed your infatuation bravely."

"It's been eating me inside. A green and yellow melancholly--hello! A
letter to him!"

"Why, so it is," I said in a scornfull tone.

He picked it up, and looked at it. Then he started and stared at me.

"No!" he said. "It isn't possible! It isn't old Valentine!"

Positively, my knees got cold. I never had such a shock.

"It--it certainly is Harold Valentine," I said feebly.

"Old Hal!" he muttered. "Well, who would have thought it! And not a word
to me about it, the secretive old duffer!" He held out his hand to me.
"Congratulations, Barbara," he said heartily. "Since you absolutely
refuse me, you couldn't do better. He's the finest chap I know. If it's
Valentine the Familey is kicking up such a row about, you leave it to
me. I'll tell them a few things."

I was stunned. Would anybody have beleived it? To pick a name out of the
air, so to speak, and off a malted milk tablet, and then to find that it
actualy belonged to some one--was sickning.

"It may not be the one you know" I said desperately. "It--it's a common
name. There must be plenty of Valentines."

"Sure there are, lace paper and Cupids--lots of that sort. But there's
only one Harold Valentine, and now you've got him pinned to the wall!
I'll tell you what I'll do, Barbara. I'm a real friend of yours. Always
have been. Always will be. The chances are against the Familey letting
him get this letter. I'll give it to him."

"GIVE it to him?"

"Why, he's here. You know that, don't you? He's in town over the
holadays."

"Oh, no!" I said in a gasping Voice.

"Sorry," he said. "Probably meant it as a surprize to you. Yes, he's
here, with bells on."

He then put the letter in his pocket before my very eyes, and sat down
on the corner of the writing table!

"You don't know how all this has releived my mind," he said. "The poor
chap's been looking down. Not interested in anything. Of course this
explains it. He' s the sort to take Love hard. At college he took
everything hard--like to have died once with German meazles."

He picked up a book, and the charred picture was underneath. He pounced
on it. "Pounced" is exactly the right word.

"Hello!" he said. "Familey again, I suppose. Yes, it's Hal, all right.
Well, who would have thought it!"

My last hope died. Then and there I had a nervous chill. I was compelled
to prop my chin on my hand to keep my teeth from chattering.

"Tell you what I'll do," he said, in a perfectly cheerfull tone that
made me cold all over. "I'll be the Cupid for your Valentine. See?
Far be it from me to see Love's young dream wiped out by a hardhearted
Familey. I'm going to see this thing through. You count on me, Barbara.
I'll arrange that you get a chance to see each other, Familey or no
Familey. Old Hal has been looking down his nose long enough. When's your
first party?"

"Tomorrow night," I gasped out.

"Very well. Tomorrow night it is. It's the Adams's, isn't it, at the
Club?"

I could only nod. I was beyond speaking. I saw it all clearly. I had
been wicked in decieving my dear Familey and now I was to pay the
Penalty. He would know at once that I had made him up, or rather he did
not know me and therefore could not possibly be in Love with me. And
what then?

"But look here," he said, "if I take him there as Valentine, the Familey
will be on, you know. We'd better call him something else. Got any
choice as to a name?"

"Carter" I said franticaly. "I think I'd better tell you. I----"

"How about calling him Grosvenor?". he babbled on. "Grosvenor's a good
name. Ted Grosvenor--that ought to hit them between the eyes. It's going
to be rather a lark, Miss Bab!"

And of course just then mother came in, and the Brooks idiot went in
and poured her a cup of tea, with his little finger stuck out at a right
angel, and every time he had a chance he winked at me.

I wanted to die.

When they had all gone home it seemed like a bad dream, the whole thing.
It could not be true. I went upstairs and manacured my nails, which
usually comforts me, and put my hair up like Leila's.

But nothing could calm me. I had made my own Fate, and must lie in it.
And just then Hannah slipped in with a box in her hands and her eyes
frightened.

"Oh, Miss Barbara!" she said. "If your mother sees this!"

I dropped my manacure scizzors, I was so alarmed. But I opened the box,
and clutched the envelope inside. It said "from H----." Then Carter was
right. There was an H after all!

Hannah was rolling her hands in her apron and her eyes were poping out
of her head.

"I just happened to see the boy at the door," she said, with her silly
teeth chattering. "Oh, Miss Barbara, if Patrick had answered the bell!
What shall we do with them?"

"You take them right down the back stairs," I said. "As if it was an
empty box. And put it outside with the waist papers. Quick."

She gathered the thing up, but of course mother had to come in just
then and they met in the doorway. She saw it all in one glance, and she
snatched the card out of my hand.

"From H----!" she read. "Take them out, Hannah, and throw them away. No,
don't do that. Put them on the Servant's table." Then, when the door
had closed, she turned to me. "Just one more ridiculous Episode of this
kind, Barbara," she said, "and you go back to school--Xmas or no Xmas."

I will say this. If she had shown the faintest softness, I'd have told
her the whole thing. But she did not. She looked exactly as gentle as a
macadam pavment. I am one who has to be handled with Gentleness. A
kind word will do anything with me, but harsh treatment only makes me
determined. I then become inflexable as iron.

That is what happened then. Mother took the wrong course and threatened,
which as I have stated is fatal, as far as I am concerned. I refused
to yeild an inch, and it ended in my having my dinner in my room, and
mother threatening to keep me home from the Party the next night. It was
not a threat, if she had only known it.

But when the next day went by, with no more flowers, and nothing
aparently wrong except that mother was very dignafied with me, I began
to feel better. Sis was out all day, and in the afternoon Jane called me
up.

"How are you?" she said.

"Oh, I'm all right."

"Everything smooth?"

"Well, smooth enough."

"Oh, Bab," she said. "I'm just crazy about it. All the girls are."

"I knew they were crazy about something."

"You poor thing, no wonder you are bitter," she said. "Somebody's
coming. I'll have to ring off. But don't you give in, Bab. Not an inch.
Marry your Heart's Desire, no matter who butts in."

Well, you can see how it was. Even then I could have told father and
mother, and got out of it somehow. But all the girls knew about it, and
there was nothing to do but go on.

All that day every time I thought of the Party my heart missed a beat.
But as I would not lie and say that I was ill--I am naturaly truthful,
as far as possible--I was compelled to go, although my heart was
breaking.

I am not going to write much about the party, except a slight
discription, which properly belongs in every Theme.

All Parties for the school set are alike. The boys range from
knickerbockers to college men in their Freshmen year, and one is likely
to dance half the evening with youngsters that one saw last in their
perambulaters. It is rather startling to have about six feet of black
trouser legs and white shirt front come and ask one to dance and then
to get one's eyes raised as far as the top of what looks like a
particularly thin pair of tree trunks and see a little boy's face.

As this Theme is to contain discription I shall discribe the ball room
of the club where the eventful party occurred.

The ball room is white, with red hangings, and looks like a Charlotte
Russe with maraschino cherries. Over the fireplace they had put "Merry
Christmas," in electric lights, and the chandaliers were made into
Christmas trees and hung with colored balls. One of the balls fell
off during the Cotillion, and went down the back of one of the girl's
dresses, and they were compelled to up-end her and shake her out in the
dressing room.

The favors were insignifacant, as usual. It is not considered good taste
to have elaberate things for the school crowd. But when I think of the
silver things Sis always brought home, and remember that I took away
about six Christmas Stockings, a toy Baloon, four Whistles, a wooden
Canary in a cage and a box of Talcum Powder, I feel that things are not
fair in this World.

Hannah went with me, and in the motor she said:

"Oh, Miss Barbara, do be careful. The Familey is that upset."

"Don't be a silly," I said. "And if the Familey is half as upset as I
am, it is throwing a fit at this minute."

We were early, of course. My mother beleives in being on time, and
besides, she and Sis wanted the motor later. And while Hannah was on her
knees taking off my carriage boots, I suddenly decided that I could not
go down. Hannah turned quite pale when I told her.

"What'll your mother say?" she said. "And you with your new dress and
all! It's as much as my life is worth to take you back home now, Miss
Barbara."

Well, that was true enough. There would be a Riot if I went home, and I
knew it.

"I'll see the Stuard and get you a cup of tea," Hannah said. "Tea sets
me up like anything when I'm nervous. Now please be a good girl, Miss
Barbara, and don't run off, or do anything foolish."

She wanted me to promise, but I would not, although I could not have run
anywhere. My legs were entirely numb.

In a half hour at the utmost I knew all would be known, and very likely
I would be a homless wanderer on the earth. For I felt that never, never
could I return to my Dear Ones, when my terrable actions became known.

Jane came in while I was sipping the tea and she stood off and eyed me
with sympathy.

"I don't wonder, Bab!" she said. "The idea of your Familey acting so
outragously! And look here" She bent over me and whispered it. "Don't
trust Carter too much. He is perfectly in fatuated with Leila, and he
will play into the hands of the enemy. BE CAREFUL."

"Loathesome creature!" was my response. "As for trusting him, I trust no
one, these days."

"I don't wonder your Faith is gone," she observed. But she was talking
with one eye on a mirror.

"Pink makes me pale," she said. "I'll bet the maid has a drawer full of
rouge. I'm going to see. How about a touch for you? You look gastly."

"I don't care how I look," I said, recklessly. "I think I'll sprain my
ankle and go home. Anyhow I am not allowed to use rouge."

"Not allowed!" she observed. "What has that got to do with it? I don't
understand you, Bab; you are totaly changed."

"I am suffering," I said. I was to.

Just then the maid brought me a folded note. Hannah was hanging up my
wraps, and did not see it. Jane's eyes fairly bulged.

"I hope you have saved the Cotillion for me," it said. And it was
signed. H----!

"Good gracious," Jane said breathlessly. "Don't tell me he is here, and
that that's from him!"

I had to swallow twice before I could speak. Then I said, solemnly:

"He is here, Jane. He has followed me. I am going to dance the Cotillion
with him although I shall probably be disinherited and thrown out into
the World, as a result."

I have no recollection whatever of going down the staircase and into the
ballroom. Although I am considered rather brave, and once saved one of
the smaller girls from drowning, as I need not remind the school, when
she was skating on thin ice, I was frightened. I remember that, inside
the door, Jane said "Courage!" in a low tence voice, and that I stepped
on somebody's foot and said "Certainly" instead of apologizing. The
shock of that brought me around somewhat, and I managed to find Mrs.
Adams and Elaine, and not disgrace myself. Then somebody at my elbow
said:

"All right, Barbara. Everything's fixed."

It was Carter.

"He's waiting in the corner over there," he said. "We'd better go
through the formalaty of an introduction. He's positively twittering
with excitement."

"Carter" I said desparately. "I want to tell you somthing first. I've
got myself in an awful mess. I----"

"Sure you have," he said. "That's why I'm here, to help you out. Now
you be calm, and there's no reason why you two can't have the evening of
your young lives. I wish _I_ could fall in Love. It must be bully."

"Carter----!"

"Got his note, didn't you?"

"Yes, I----"

"Here we are," said Carter. "Miss Archibald, I would like to present Mr.
Grosvenor."

Somebody bowed in front of me, and then straightened up and looked down
at me. IT WAS THE MAN OF THE PICTURE, LITTLE MUSTACHE AND ALL. My mouth
went perfectly dry.

It is all very well to talk about Romance and Love, and all that sort
of thing. But I have concluded that amorus experiences are not always
agreeable. And I have discovered something else. The moment anybody is
crazy about me I begin to hate him. It is curious, but I am like that. I
only care as long as they, or he, is far away. And the moment I touched
H's white kid glove, I knew I loathed him.

"Now go to it, you to," Carter said in cautious tone. "Don't be
conspicuous. That's all."

And he left us.

"Suppose we dance this. Shall we?" said H. And the next moment we were
gliding off. He danced very well. I will say that. But at the time I was
too much occupied with hateing him to care about dancing, or anything.
But I was compelled by my pride to see things through. We are a very
proud Familey and never show our troubles, though our hearts be torn
with anguish.

"Think," he said, when we had got away from the band, "think of our
being together like this!"

"It's not so surprizing, is it? We've got to be together if we are
dancing."

"Not that. Do you know, I never knew so long a day as this has been. The
thought of meeting you--er--again, and all that."

"You needn't rave for my benefit," I said freesingly. "You know
perfectly well that you never saw me before."

"Barbara! With your dear little Letter in my breast pocket at this
moment!"

"I didn't know men had breast pockets in their evening clothes."

"Oh well, have it your own way. I'm too happy to quarrel," he said. "How
well you dance--only, let me lead, won't you? How strange it is to think
that we have never danced together before!"

"We must have a talk," I said desparately. "Can't we go somwhere, away
from the noise?"

"That would be conspicuous, wouldn't it, under the circumstances? If we
are to overcome the Familey objection to me, we'll have to be cautious,
Barbara."

"Don't call me Barbara," I snapped. "I know perfectly well what you
think of me, and I----"

"I think you are wonderful," he said. "Words fail me when I try to tell
you what I am thinking. You've saved the Cotillion for me, haven't you?
If not, I'm going to claim it anyhow. IT IS MY RIGHT."

He said it in the most determined manner, as if everything was settled.
I felt like a rat in a trap, and Carter, watching from a corner, looked
exactly like a cat. If he had taken his hand in its white glove and
washed his face with it, I would hardly have been surprized.

The music stopped, and somebody claimed me for the next. Jane came up,
too, and cluched my arm.

"You lucky thing!" she said. "He's perfectly handsome. And oh, Bab, he's
wild about you. I can see it in his eyes."

"Don't pinch, Jane," I said coldly. "And don't rave. He's an idiot."

She looked at me with her mouth open.

"Well, if you don't want him, pass him on to me," she said, and walked
away.

It was too silly, after everything that had happened, to dance the next
dance with Willie Graham, who is still in knickerbockers, and a full
head shorter than I am. But that's the way with a Party for the school
crowd, as I've said before. They ask all ages, from perambulaters up,
and of course the little boys all want to dance with the older girls. It
is deadly stupid.

But H seemed to be having a good time. He danced a lot with Jane, who
is a wreched dancer, with no sense of time whatever. Jane is not pretty,
but she has nice eyes, and I am not afraid, second couzin once removed
or no second couzin once removed, to say she used them.

Altogether, it was a terrible evening. I danced three dances out of four
with knickerbockers, and one with old Mr. Adams, who is fat and rotates
his partner at the corners by swinging her on his waistcoat. Carter did
not dance at all, and every time I tried to speak to him he was taking a
crowd of the little girls to the fruit-punch bowl.

I determined to have things out with H during the Cotillion, and tell
him that I would never marry him, that I would Die first. But I was
favored a great deal, and when we did have a chance the music was making
such a noise that I would have had to shout. Our chairs were next to the
band.

But at last we had a minute, and I went out to the verandah, which was
closed in with awnings. He had to follow, of course, and I turned and
faced him.

"Now" I said, "this has got to stop."

"I don't understand you, Bab."

"You do, perfectly well," I stormed. "I can't stand it. I am going
crazy."

"Oh," he said slowly. "I see. I've been dancing too much with the
little girl with the eyes! Honestly, Bab, I was only doing it to disarm
suspicion. MY EVERY THOUGHT IS OF YOU."

"I mean," I said, as firmly as I could, "that this whole thing has got
to stop. I can't stand it."

"Am I to understand," he said solemnly, "that you intend to end
everything?"

I felt perfectly wild and helpless.

"After that Letter!" he went on. "After that sweet Letter! You said, you
know, that you were mad to see me, and that--it is almost too sacred
to repeat, even to YOU--that you would always love me. After that
Confession I refuse to agree that all is over. It can NEVER be over."

"I daresay I am losing my mind," I said. "It all sounds perfectly
natural. But it doesn't mean anything. There CAN'T be any Harold
Valentine; because I made him up. But there is, so there must be. And I
am going crazy."

"Look here," he stormed, suddenly quite raving, and throwing out his
right hand. It would have been terrably dramatic, only he had a glass of
punch in it. "I am not going to be played with. And you are not going to
jilt me without a reason. Do you mean to deny everything? Are you going
to say, for instance, that I never sent you any violets? Or gave you my
Photograph, with an--er--touching inscription on it?" Then, appealingly,
"You can't mean to deny that Photograph, Bab!"

And then that lanky wretch of an Eddie Perkins brought me a toy Baloon,
and I had to dance, with my heart crushed.

Nevertheless, I ate a fair supper. I felt that I needed Strength. It was
quite a grown-up supper, with boullion and creamed chicken and baked ham
and sandwitches, among other things. But of course they had to show it
was a `kid' party, after all. For instead of coffee we had milk.