Bab: A Sub Deb

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


"I do not care for any dinner," I replied. Then, seeing she did not
understand, I said coldly. "How can I care for food, mother, when the
Sea looks like a dying ople?"

"Dying pussycat!" mother said, in a very nasty way. "I don't know what
has come over you, Barbara. You used to be a normle Child, and there was
some accounting for what you were going to do. But now! Take off that
nightgown, and I'll have Tanney hold off dinner for half an hour."

Tanney was the butler who had taken Patrick's place.

"If you insist," I said coldly. "But I shall not eat."

"Why not?"

"You wouldn't understand, mother."

"Oh, I wouldn't? Well, suppose I try," she said, and sat down. "I am
not very intellagent, but if you put it clearly I may grasp it. Perhaps
you'd better speak slowly, also."

So, sitting there in my room, while the sea throbed in tireless beats
against the shore, while the light faded and the stars issued, one by
one, like a rash on the Face of the sky, I told mother of my dreams. I
intended, I said, to write Life as it realy is, and not as supposed to
be.

"It may in places be, ugly" I said, "but Truth is my banner. The Truth
is never ugly, because it is real. It is, for instance, not ugly if a
man is in love with the wife of another, if it is real love, and not the
passing fansy of a moment."

Mother opened her mouth, but did not say anything.

"There was a time," I said, "when I longed for things that now have no
value whatever to me. I cared for clothes and even for the attentions of
the Other Sex. But that has passed away, mother. I have now no thought
but for my Career."

I watched her face, and soon the dreadfull understanding came to me.
She, to, did not understand. My literary Aspirations were as nothing to
her!

Oh, the bitterness of that moment. My mother, who had cared for me as a
child, and obeyed my slightest wish, no longer understood me. And sadest
of all, there was no way out. None. Once, in my Youth, I had beleived
that I was not the child of my parents at all, but an adopted
one--perhaps of rank and kept out of my inheritance by those who had
selfish motives. But now I knew that I had no rank or Inheritance, save
what I should carve out for myself. There was no way out. None.

Mother rose slowly, stareing at me with perfectly fixed and glassy Eyes.

"I am absolutely sure," she said, "that you are on the edge of somthing.
It may be tiphoid, or it may be an elopement. But one thing is certain.
You are not normle."

With this she left me to my Thoughts. But she did not neglect me. Sis
came up after Dinner, and I saw mother's fine hand in that. Although not
hungry in the usual sense of the word, I had begun to grow rather empty,
and was nibling out of a box of Chocolates when Sis came.

She got very little out of me. To one with softness and tenderness I
would have told all, but Sis is not that sort. And at last she showed
her clause.

"Don't fool yourself for a minute," she said. "This literary pose has
not fooled anybody. Either you're doing it to apear Interesting, or
you've done somthing you're scared about. Which is it?"

I refused to reply.

"Because if it's the first, and you're trying to look literary, you are
going about it wrong," she said. "Real Literary People don't go round
mooning and talking about the ople sea."

I saw mother had been talking, and I drew myself up.

"They look and act like other people," said Leila, going to the bureau
and spilling Powder all over the place. "Look at Beecher."

"Beecher!" I cried, with a thrill that started inside my elbows. (I
have read this to one or two of the girls, and they say there is no such
thrill. But not all people act alike under the influence of emotion, and
mine is in my Arms, as stated.)

"The playwright," Sis said. "He's staying next door. And if he does any
languishing it is not by himself."

There may be some who have for a long time had an Ideal, but without
hoping ever to meet him, and then suddenly learning that he is nearby,
with indeed but a wall or two between, can be calm and cool. But I am
not like that. Although long supression has taught me to disemble at
times, where my Heart is concerned I am powerless.

For it was at last my heart that was touched. I, who had scorned the
Other Sex and felt that I was born cold and always would be cold, that
day I discovered the truth. Reginald Beecher was my ideal. I had never
spoken to him, nor indeed seen him, except for his pictures. But the
very mention of his name brought a lump to my Throat.

Feeling better imediately, I got Sis out of the room and coaxed Hannah
to bring me some dinner. While she was sneaking it out of the Pantrey I
was dressing, and soon, as a new being, I was out on the stone bench at
the foot of the lawn, gazing with wrapt eyes at the sea.

But Fate was against me. Eddie Perkins saw me there and came over. He
had but recently been put in long trowsers, and those not his best
ones but only white flannels. He was never sure of his garters, and was
always looking to see if his socks were coming down. Well, he came over
just as I was sure I saw Reginald Beecher next door on the veranda, and
made himself a nusance right away, trying all sorts of kid tricks, such
as snaping a rubber Band at me, and pulling out Hairpins.

But I felt that I must talk to somone. So I said:

"Eddie, if you had your choice of love or a Career, which would it be?"

"Why not both," he said, hiching the rubber band onto one of his front
teeth and playing on it. "Niether ought to take up all a fellow's time.
Say, listen to this! Talk about a eukelele!"

"A woman can never have both."

He played a while, struming with one finger until the hand sliped off
and stung him on the lip.

"Once," I said, "I dreamed of a Career. But I beleive love's the most
important."

Well, I shall pass lightly over what followed. Why is it that a girl
cannot speak of Love without every member of the Other Sex present, no
matter how young, thinking it is he? And as for mother maintaining that
I kissed that wreched Child, and they saw me from the drawing-room, it
is not true and never was true. It was but one more Misunderstanding
which convinced the Familey that I was carrying on all manner of afairs.

Carter Brooks had arrived that day, and was staying at the Perkins'
cottage. I got rid of the Perkins' baby, as his Nose was bleeding--but I
had not slaped him hard at all, and felt little or no compunction--when
I heard Carter coming down the walk. He had called to see Leila, but
she had gone to a beech dance and left him alone. He never paid any
attention to me when she was around, and I recieved him cooly.

"Hello!" he said.

"Well?" I replied.

"Is that the way you greet me, Bab?"

"It's the way I would greet most any Left-over," I said. "I eat hash at
school, but I don't have to pretend to like it."

"I came to see YOU."

"How youthfull of you!" I replied, in stinging tones.

He sat down on a Bench and stared at me.

"What's got into you lately?" he said. "Just as you're geting to be
the prettiest girl around, and I'm strong for you, you--you turn into a
regular Rattlesnake."

The kindness of his tone upset me considerably, to who so few kind Words
had come recently. I am compeled to confess that I wept, although I had
not expected to, and indeed shed few tears, although bitter ones.

How could I posibly know that the chaste Salute of Eddie Perkins and my
head on Carter Brooks' shoulder were both plainly visable against the
rising moon? But this was the Case, especialy from the house next door.

But I digress.

Suddenly Carter held me off and shook me somewhat.

"Sit up here and tell me about it," he said. "I'm geting more scared
every minute. You are such an impulsive little Beast, and you turn the
fellows' heads so--look here, is Jane Raleigh lying, or did you run away
and get married to somone?"

I am aware that I should have said, then and there, No. But it seemed a
shame to spoil Things just as they were geting interesting. So I said,
through my tears:

"Nobody understands me. Nobody. And I'm so lonely."

"And of course you haven't run away with anyone, have you?"

"Not--exactly."

"Bless you, Bab!" he said. And I might as well say that he kissed me,
because he did, although unexpectedly. Sombody just then moved a Chair
on the porch next door and coughed rather loudly, so Carter drew a long
breath and got up.

"There's somthing about you lately, Bab, that I don't understand," he
said. "You--you're mysterious. That's the word. In a couple of Years
you'll be the real thing."

"Come and see me then," I said in a demure manner. And he went away.

So I sat on my Bench and looked at the sea and dreamed. It seemed to
me that Centuries must have passed since I was a light-hearted girl,
running up and down that beech, paddling, and so forth, with no thought
of the future farther away than my next meal.

Once I lived to eat. Now I merely ate to live, and hardly that. The
fires of Genius must be fed, but no more.

Sitting there, I suddenly made a discovery. The boat house was near me,
and I realize that upstairs, above the Bath-houses, et cetera, there
must be a room or two. The very thought intriged me (a new word for
interest, but coming into use, and sounding well).

Solatude--how I craved it for my work. And here it was, or would be when
I had got the Place fixed up. True, the next door boat-house was close,
but a boat-house is a quiet place, generaly, and I knew that nowhere,
aside from the dessert, is there perfect Silence.

I investagated at once, but found the place locked and the boatman gone.
However, there was a latice, and I climbed up that and got in. I had a
Fright there, as it seemed to be full of people, but I soon saw it was
only the Familey bathing suits hung up to dry. Aside from the odor of
drying things it was a fine study, and I decided to take a small table
there, and the various tools of my Profession.

Climbing down, however, I had a surprise. For a man was just below, and
I nearly put my foot on his shoulder in the darkness.

"Hello!" he said. "So it's YOU."

I was quite speachless. It was Mr. Beecher himself, in his dinner
clothes and bareheaded.

Oh flutering Heart, be still. Oh Pen, move steadily. OH TEMPORA O MORES!

"Let me down," I said. I was still hanging to the latice.

"In a moment," he said. "I have an idea that the instant I do you'll
vanish. And I have somthing to tell you."

I could hardly beleive my ears.

"You see," he went on, "I think you must move that Bench."

"Bench?"

"You seem to be so very popular," he said. "And of course I'm only a
transient and don't matter. But some evening one of the admirers may be
on the Patten's porch, while another is with you on the bench. And--the
Moon rises beyond it."

I was silent with horor. So that was what he thought of me. Like all the
others, he, to, did not understand. He considered me a Flirt, when my
only Thoughts were serious ones, of imortality and so on.

"You'd better come down now," he said. "I was afraid to warn you until I
saw you climbing the latice. Then I knew you were still young enough to
take a friendly word of Advise."

I got down then and stood before him. He was magnifacent. Is there
anything more beautiful than a tall man with a gleaming expance of dress
shirt? I think not.

But he was staring at me.

"Look here," he said. "I'm afraid I've made a mistake after all. I
thought you were a little girl."

"That needn't worry you. Everybody does," I replied. "I'm seventeen, but
I shall be a mere Child until I come out."

"Oh!" he said.

"One day I am a Child in the nursery," I said. "And the next I'm grown
up and ready to be sold to the highest Bider."

"I beg your pardon, I----"

"But I am as grown up now as I will ever be," I said. "And indeed more
so. I think a great deal now, because I have plenty of Time. But my
sister never thinks at all. She is to busy."

"Suppose we sit on the Bench. The moon is to high to be a menace, and
besides, I am not dangerous. Now, what do you think about?"

"About Life, mostly. But of course there is Death, which is beautiful
but cold. And--one always thinks of Love, doesn't one?"

"Does one?" he asked. I could see he was much interested. As for me, I
dared not consider whom it was who sat beside me, almost touching. That
way lay madness.

"Don't you ever," he said, "reflect on just ordinary things, like
Clothes and so forth?"

I shruged my shoulders.

"I don't get enough new clothes to worry about. Mostly I think of my
Work."

"Work?"

"I am a writer" I said in a low, ernest tone.

"No! How--how amazing. What do you write?"

"I'm on a play now."

"A Comedy?"

"No. A Tradgedy. How can I write a Comedy when a play must always end
in a catastrofe? The book says all plays end in Crisis, Denouement and
Catastrofe."

"I can't beleive it," he said. "But, to tell you a Secret, I never read
any books about Plays."

"We are not all gifted from berth, as you are," I observed, not to
merely please him, but because I considered it the simple Truth.

He pulled out his watch and looked at it in the moonlight.

"All this reminds me," he said, "that I have promised to go to work
tonight. But this is so--er--thrilling that I guess the work can wait.
Well--now go on."

Oh, the Joy of that night! How can I describe it? To be at last in
the company of one who understood, who--as he himself had said in "Her
Soul"--spoke my own languidge! Except for the occasional mosquitoe,
there was no sound save the turgescent sea and his Voice.

Often since that time I have sat and listened to conversation. How flat
it sounds to listen to father prozing about Gold, or Sis about Clothes,
or even to the young men who come to call, and always talk about
themselves.

We were at last interupted in a strange manner. Mr. Patten came down
their walk and crossed to us, walking very fast. He stopped right in
front of us and said:

"Look here, Reg, this is about all I can stand."

"Oh, go away, and sing, or do somthing," said Mr. Beecher sharply.

"You gave me your word of Honor" said the Patten man. "I can only remind
you of that. Also of the expence I'm incuring, and all the rest of it.
I've shown all sorts of patience, but this is the limit."

He turned on his Heal, but came back for a last word or two.

"Now see here," he said, "we have everything fixed the way you said You
wanted it. And I'll give you ten minutes. That's all."

He stocked away, and Mr. Beecher looked at me.

"Ten minutes of Heaven," he said, "and then perdetion with that bunch.
Look here," he said, "I--I'm awfully interested in what you are telling
me. Let's cut off up the beech and talk."

Oh night of Nights! Oh moon of Moons!

Our talk was strictly business. He asked me my Plot, and although I had
been warned not to do so, even to David Belasco, I gave it to him fully.
And even now, when all is over, I am not sorry. Let him use it if he
will. I can think of plenty of Plots.

The real tradgedy is that we met father. He had been ordered to give up
smoking, and I considered had done so, mother feeling that I should be
encouraged in leaving off cigarettes. So when I saw the cigar I was sure
it was not father. It proved to be, however, and although he passed with
nothing worse than a Glare, I knew I was in more trouble.

At last we reached the Bench again, and I said good night. Our relations
continued business-like to the last. He said:

"Good night, little authoress, and let's have some more talks."

"I'm afraid I've board you," I said.

"Board me!" he said. "I haven't spent such an evening for years!"

The Familey acted perfectly absurd about it. Seeing that they were going
to make a fuss, I refused to say with whom I had been walking. You'd
have thought I had committed a crime.

"It has come to this, Barbara," mother said, pacing the floor. "You
cannot be trusted out of our sight. Where do you meet all these men? If
this is how things are now, what will it be when given your Liberty?"

Well, it is to painful to record. I was told not to leave the place for
three days, although allowed the boat-house. And of course Sis had to
chime in that she'd heard a roomer I had run away and got married, and
although of course she knew it wasn't true, owing to no time to do so,
still where there was Smoke there was Fire.

But I felt that their confidence in me was going, and that night, after
all were in the Land of Dreams, I took that wreched suit of clothes and
so on to the boathouse, and hid them in the rafters upstairs.

I come now to the strange Event of the next day, and its sequel.

The Patten place and ours are close together, and no other house near.
Mother had been very cool about the Pattens, owing to nobody knowing
them that we knew. Although I must say they had the most interesting
people all the time, and Sis was crazy to call and meet some of them.

Jane came that day to visit her aunt, and she ran down to see me first
thing.

"Come and have a ride," she said. "I've got the Runabout, and after that
we'll bathe and have a real time."

But I shook my head.

"I'm a prisoner, Jane," I said.

"Honestly! Is it the Play, or somthing else?"

"Somthing else, Jane," I said. "I can tell you nothing more. I am simply
in trouble, as usual."

"But why make you a prisoner, unless----" She stopped suddenly and
stared at me.

"He has claimed you!" she said. "He is here, somwhere about this Place,
and now, having had time to think it over, you do not Want to go to him.
Don't deny it. I see it in your face. Oh, Bab, my heart aches for you."

It sounded so like a play that I kept it up. Alas, with what results!

"What else can I do, Jane?" I said.

"You can refuse, if you do not love him. Oh Bab, I did not say it
before, thinking you loved him. But no man who wears clothes like those
could ever win my heart. At least, not permanently."

Well, she did most of the talking. She had finished the bath towle,
which was a large size, after all, and monogramed, and she made me
promise never to let my husband use it. When she went away she left it
with me, and I carried it out and put it on the rafters, with the other
things--I seemed to be getting more to hide every day.

Things went all wrong the next day. Sis was in a bad temper, and as much
as said I was flirting with Carter Brooks, although she never intends to
marry him herself, owing to his not having money and never having asked
her.

I spent the morning in fixing up a Studio in the boat-house, and felt
better by noon. I took two boards on trestles and made a desk, and
brought a Dictionery and some pens and ink out. I use a Dictionery
because now and then I am uncertain how to spell a word.

Events now moved swiftly and terrably. I did not do much work, being
exhausted by my efforts to fix up the studio, and besides, feeling that
nothing much was worth while when one's Familey did not and never would
understand. At eleven o'clock Sis and Carter and Jane and some others
went in bathing from our dock. Jane called up to me, but I pretended not
to hear. They had a good time judging by the noise, although I should
think Jane would cover her arms and neck in the water, being very thin.
Legs one can do nothing with, although I should think stripes going
around would help. But arms can have sleaves.

However--the people next door went in to, and I thrilled to the core
when Mr. Beecher left the bath-house and went down to the beech. What
a physic! What shoulders, all brown and muscular! And to think that,
strong as they were, they wrote the tender Love seens of his plays.
Strong and tender--what descriptive words they are! It was then that I
saw he had been vacinated twice.

To resume. All the Pattens went in, and a new girl with them, in a
One-peace Suit. I do not deny that she was pretty. I only say that she
was not modest, and that the way she stood on the Patten's dock
and pozed for Mr. Beecher's benafit was unecessary and well, not
respectable.

She was nothing to me, nor I to her. But I watched her closely. I
confess that I was interested in Mr. Beecher. Why not? He was a Public
Character, and entitled to respect. Nay, even to love. But I maintain
and will to my dying day, that such love is diferent from that
ordinaraly born to the Other Sex, and a thing to be proud of.

Well, I was seeing a drama and did not even know it. After the rest
had gone, Mr. Patten came to the door into Mr. Beecher's room in the
bath-house--they are all in a row, with doors opening on the sand--and
he had a box in his hand. He looked around, and no one was looking
except me, and he did not see me. He looked very Feirce and Glum, and
shortly after he carried in a chair and a folding card table. I thought
this was very strange, but imagine how I felt when he came out carrying
Mr. Beecher's clothes! He brought them all, going on his tiptoes and
watching every minute. I felt like screaming.

However, I considered that it was a practicle Joke, and I am no spoil
sport. So I sat still and waited. They staid in the water a long time,
and the girl with the Figure was always crawling out on the dock and
then diving in to show off. Leila and the rest got sick of her actions
and came in to Lunch. They called up to me, but I said I was not hungry.

"I don't know what's come over Bab," I heard Sis say to Carter Brooks.
"She's crazy, I think."

"She's seventeen," he said. "That's all. They get over it mostly, but
she has it hard."

I lothed him.

Pretty soon the other crowd came up, and I could see every one knew the
joke but Mr. Beecher. They all scuttled into their doorways, and Mr.
Patten waited till Mr. Beecher was inside and had thrown out the shirt
of his bathing Suit. Then he locked the door from the outside.

There was a silence for a minute. Then Mr. Beecher said in a terrable
voice.

"So that's the Game, is it?"

"Now listen, Reg," Mr. Patten said, in a soothing voice. "I've tried
everything but Force, and now I'm driven to that. I've got to have that
third Act. The company's got the first two acts well under way, and I'm
getting wires about every hour. I've got to have that script."

"You go to Hell!" said Mr. Beecher. You could hear him plainly through
the window, high up in the wall. And although I do not approve of an
oath, there are times when it eases the tortured Soul.

"Now be reasonable, Reg," Mr. Patten pleaded. "I've put a fortune in
this thing, and you're lying down on the job. You could do it in four
hours if you'd put your mind to it."

There was no anser to this. And he went on:

"I'll send out food or anything. But nothing to drink. There's Champane
on the ice for you when you've finished, however. And you'll find pens
and ink and paper on the table."

The anser to this was Mr. Beecher's full weight against the door. But it
held, even against the full force of his fine physic.

"Even if you do break it open," Mr. Patten said, "you can't go very far
the way you are. Now be a good fellow, and let's get this thing done.
It's for your good as well as mine. You'll make a Fortune out of it."

Then he went into his own door, and soon came out, looking like a
gentleman, unless one knew, as I did, that he was a Whited Sepulcher.

How long I sat there, paralized with emotion, I do not know. Hannah
came out and roused me from my Trance of grief. She is a kindly soul,
although to afraid of mother to be helpful.

"Come in like a good girl, Miss Bab," she said. "There's that fruit
salad that cook prides herself on, and I'll ask her to brown a bit of
sweetbread for you."

"Hannah," I said in a low voice, "there is a Crime being committed in
this neighborhood, and you talk to me of food."

"Good gracious, Miss Bab!"

"I cannot tell you any more than that, Hannah," I said gently, "because
it is only being done now, and I cannot make up my Mind about it. But of
course I do not want any food."

As I say, I was perfectly gentle with her, and I do not understand why
she burst into tears and went away.

I sat and thought it all over. I could not leave, under the
circumstances. But yet, what was I to do? It was hardly a Police matter,
being between friends, as one may say, and yet I simply could not bare
to leave my Ideal there in that damp bath-house without either food or,
as one may say, raiment.

About the middle of the afternoon it occurred to me to try to find a key
for the lock of the bath-house. I therfore left my Studio and proceded
to the house. I passed close by the fatal building, but there was no
sound from it.

I found a number of trunk-keys in a drawer in the library, and was about
to escape with them, when father came in. He gave me a long look, and
said:

"Bee still buzzing?"

I had hoped for some understanding from him, but my Spirits fell at this
speach.

"I am still working, father," I said, in a firm if nervous tone. "I am
not doing as good work as I would if things were diferent, but--I am at
least content, if not happy."

He stared at me, and then came over to me.

"Put out your tongue," he said.

Even against this crowning infamey I was silent.

"That's all right," he said. "Now see here, Chicken, get into your
riding togs and we'll order the horses. I don't intend to let this
play-acting upset your health."