Bab: A Sub Deb

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


But I refused. "Unless, of course, you insist," I finished. He only
shook his head, however, and left the room. I felt that I had lost my
Last Friend.

I did not try the keys myself, but instead stood off a short distance
and through them through the window. I learned later that they struck
Mr. Beecher on the head. Not knowing, of course, that I had flung them,
and that my reason was pure Friendliness and Idealizm, he through them
out again with a violent exclamation. They fell at my feet, and lay
there, useless, regected, tradgic.

At last I summoned courage to speak.

"Can't I do somthing to help?" I said, in a quaking voice, to the
window.

There was no anser, but I could hear a pen scraching on paper.

"I do so want to help you," I said, in a louder tone.

"Go, away" said his voice, rather abstracted than angry.

"May I try the keys?" I asked. Be still, my Heart! For the scraching had
ceased.

"Who's that?" asked the beloved voice. I say `beloved' because an Ideal
is always beloved. The voice was beloved, but sharp.

"It's me."

I heard him mutter somthing, and I think he came to the Door.

"Look here," he said. "Go away. Do you understand? I want to work. And
don't come near here again until seven o'clock."

"Very well," I said faintly.

"And then come without fail," he said.

"Yes, Mr. Beecher," I replied. How commanding he was! Strong but tender!

"And if anyone comes around making a noise, before that, you shoot them
for me, will you?"

"SHOOT them?"

"Drive them off, or use a Bean-shooter. Anything. But don't yell at
them. It distracts me."

It was a Sacred trust. I, and only I, stood between him and his MAGNUM
OPUM. I sat down on the steps of our bath-house, and took up my vigel.

It was about five o'clock when I heard Jane approaching. I knew it was
Jane, because she always wears tight shoes, and limps when unobserved.
Although having the reputation of the smallest foot of any girl in our
set in the city, I prefer Comfort and Ease, unhampered by heals--French
or otherwise. No man will ever marry a girl because she wears a small
shoe, and catches her heals in holes in the Boardwalk, and has to soak
her feet at night before she can sleep. However----

Jane came on, and found me croutched on the doorstep, in a lowly
attatude, and holding my finger to my lips.

She stopped and stared at me.

"Hello," she said. "What do you think you are? A Statue?"

"Hush, Jane," I said, in a low tone. "I can only ask you to be quiet and
speak in Whispers. I cannot give the reason."

"Good heavens!" she whispered. "What has happened, Bab?"

"It is happening now, but I cannot explain."

"WHAT is happening?"

"Jane," I whispered, ernestly, "you have known me a long time and I have
always been Trustworthy, have I not?"

She nodded. She is never exactly pretty, and now she had opened her
mouth and forgot to close it.

"Then ask No Questions. Trust me, as I am trusting you." It seemed to
me that Mr. Beecher through his pen at the door, and began to pace the
bath-house. Owing of course to his being in his bare feet, I was not
certain. Jane heard somthing, to, for she clutched my arm.

"Bab," she said, in intence tones, "if you don't explain I shall lose my
mind. I feel now that I am going to shreik."

She looked at me searchingly.

"Sombody is a Prisoner. That's all."

It was the truth, was it not? And was there any reasons for Jane Raleigh
to jump to conclusions as she did, and even to repeat later in Public
that I had told her that my lover had come for me, and that father had
locked him up to prevent my running away with him, imuring him in the
Patten's bath-house? Certainly not.

Just then I saw the boatman coming who looks after our motor boat, and I
tiptoed to him and asked him to go away, and not to come back unless he
had quieter boats and would not whistel. He acted very ugly about it, I
must say, but he went.

When I came back, Jane was sitting thinking, with her forhead all
puckered.

"What I don't understand, Bab," she said, "is, why no noise?"

"Because he is writing," I explained. "Although his clothing has been
taken away, he is writing. I don't think I told you, Jane, but that is
his business. He is a Writer. And if I tell you his name you will faint
with surprise."

She looked at me searchingly.

"Locked up--and writing, and his clothing gone! What's he writing, Bab?
His Will?"

"He is doing his duty to the end, Jane," I said softly. "He is writing
the last Act of a Play. The Company is rehearsing the first two Acts,
and he has to get this one ready, though the Heavens fall."

But to my surprise, she got up and said to me, in a firm voice:

"Either you are crazy, Barbara Archibald, or you think I am. You've
been stuffing me for about a week, and I don't beleive a Word of it. And
you'll apologize to me or I'll never speak to you again."

She said this loudly, and then went away, And Mr. Beecher said, through
the door.

"What the Devil's the row about?"

Perhaps my nerves were going, or possably it was no luncheon and
probably no dinner. But I said, just as if he had been an ordinary
person:

"Go on and write and get through. I can't stew on these steps all day."

"I thought you were an amiable Child."

"I'm not amiable and I'm not a Child."

"Don't spoil your pretty face with frowns."

"It's MY face. And you can't see it anyhow," I replied, venting in
femanine fashion, my anger at Jane on the nearest object.

"Look here," he said, through the door, "you've been my good Angel. I'm
doing more work than I've done in two months, although it was a dirty,
low-down way to make me do it. You're not going back on me now, are
you?"

Well, I was mollafied, as who would not be? So I said:

"Well?"

"What did Patten do with my clothes?"

"He took them with him." He was silent, except for a muttered word.

"You might throw those Keys back again," he said. "Let me know first,
however. You're the most acurate Thrower I've ever seen."

So I through them through the window and I beleive hit the ink bottle.
But no matter. And he tried them, but none availed.

So he gave up, and went back to Work, having saved enough ink to finish
with. But a few minutes later he called to me again, and I moved to the
Doorstep, where I sat listening, while aparently admiring the sea. He
explained that having been thus forced, he had almost finished the last
Act, and it was a corker. And he said if he had his clothes and some
money, and a key to get out, he'd go right back to Town with it and
put it in rehearsle. And at the same time he would give the Pattens
something to worry about over night. Because, play or no play, it was a
Rotten thing to lock a man in a bath-house and take his clothes away.

"But of course I can't get my clothes," he said. "They'll take cussed
good care of that. And there's the Key too. We're up against it, Little
Sister."

Although excited by his calling me thus, I retained my faculties, and
said:

"I have a suit of Clothes you can have."

"Thanks awfully," he said. "But from the slight acquaintance we have
had, I don't beleive they would fit me."

"Gentleman's Clothes," I said fridgidly.

"You have?"

"In my Studio," I said. "I can bring them, if you like. They look quite
good, although Creased."

"You know" he said, after a moment's silence, "I can't quite beleive
this is realy happening to me! Go and bring the suit of clothes,
and--you don't happen to have a cigar, I suppose?"

"I have a large box of Cigarettes."

"It is true," I heard him say through the door. "It is all true. I am
here, locked in. The Play is almost done. And a very young lady on the
doorstep is offering me a suit of Clothes and Tobaco. I pinch myself. I
am awake."

Alas! Mingled with my joy at serving my Ideal there was also greif. My
idle had feet of clay. He was a slave, like the rest of us, to his body.
He required clothes and tobaco. I felt that, before long, he might even
ask for an apple, or something to stay the pangs of hunger. This I felt
I could not bare.

Perhaps I would better pass over quickly the events of the next hour. I
got the suit and the cigarettes, and even Jane's bath towle, and through
them in to him. Also I beleive he took a shower, as I heard the water
running, At about seven o'clock he said he had finished the play. He put
on the Clothes which he observed almost fitted him, although gayer than
he usually wore, and said that if I would give him a hair pin he thought
he could pick the Lock. But he did not succeed.

Being now dressed, however, he drew a chair to the window and we
talked together. It seemed like a dream that I should be there, on such
intimate terms with a great Playwright, who had just, even if under
compulsion, finished a last Act, I bared my very soul to him, such as
about resembling Julia Marlowe, and no one understanding my craveing to
acheive a Place in the World of Art. We were once interupted by Hannah
looking for me for dinner. But I hid in a bath-house, and she went away.

What was Food to me compared with such a Conversation?

When Hannah had disappeared, he said suddenly:

"It's rather unusual, isn't it, your having a suit of clothes and
everything in your--er--studio?"

But I did not explain fully, merely saving that it was a painful story.

At half past seven I saw mother on the veranda looking for me, and I
ducked out of sight, I was by this time very hungry, although I did not
like to mention the fact, But Mr. Beecher made a suggestion, which was
this: that the Pattens were evadently going to let him starve until
he got through work, and that he would see them in perdetion before
he would be the Butt for their funny remarks when they freed him. He
therfore tried to escape out the window, but stuck fast, and finaly gave
it up.

At last he said:

"Look here, you're a curious child, but a nervy one. How'd you like to
see if you can get the Key? If you do we'll go to a hotel and have a
real meal, and we can talk about your Career."

Although quivering with Terror, I consented. How could I do otherwise,
with such a prospect? For now I began to see that all other Emotions
previously felt were as nothing to this one. I confess, without shame,
that I felt the stiring of the Tender Passion in my breast. Ah me, that
it should have died ere it had hardly lived!

"Where is the key?" I asked, in a wrapt but anxious tone.

He thought a while.

"Generaly," he said, "it hangs on a nail at the back entry. But the
chances are that Patten took it up to his room this time, for safety,
You'd know it if you saw it. It has some buttons off sombody's batheing
suit tied to it."

Here it was necessary to hide again, as father came stocking out,
calling me in an angry tone. But shortly afterwards I was on my way
to the Patten's house, on shaking Knees. It was by now twilight, that
beautiful period of Romanse, although the dinner hour also. Through the
dusk I sped, toward what? I knew not.

The Pattens and the one-peace lady were at dinner, and having a very
good time, in spite of having locked a Guest in the bath-house. Being
used to servants and prowling around, since at one time when younger I
had a habit of taking things from the pantrey, I was quickly able to see
that the Key was not in the entry. I therfore went around to the front
Door and went in, being prepared, if discovered, to say that somone was
in their bath-house and they ought to know it. But I was not heard among
their sounds of revelry, and was able to proceed upstairs, which I did.

But not having asked which was Mr. Patten's room, I was at a loss and
almost discovered by a maid who was turning down the beds--much to
early, also, and not allowed in the best houses until nine-thirty, since
otherwise the rooms look undressed and informle.

I had but Time to duck into another chamber, and from there to a closet.

I REMAINED IN THAT CLOSET ALL NIGHT.

I will explain. No sooner had the maid gone than a Woman came into the
room and closed the door. I heard her moving around and I suddenly felt
that she was going to bed, and might get her ROBE DE NUIT out of the
closet. I was petrafied. But it seems, while she really WAS undressing
at that early hour, the maid had laid her night clothes out, and I was
saved.

Very soon a knock came to the door, and somhody came in, like Mrs.
Patten's voice and said: "You're not going to bed, surely!"

"I'm going to pretend to have a sick headache," said the other Person,
and I knew it was the One-peace Lady. "He's going to come back in a
frenzey, and he'll take it out on me, unless I'm prepared."

"Poor Reggie!" said Mrs. Patten, "To think of him locked in there alone,
and no Clothes or anything. It's too funny for words."

"You're not married to him."

My heart stopped beating. Was SHE married to him? She was indeed. My
dream was over. And the worst part of it was that for a married man
I had done without Food or exercise and now stood in a hot closet in
danger of a terrable fuss.

"No, thank Heaven!" said Mrs. Patten. "But it was the only way to make
him work. He is a lazy dog. But don't worry. We'll feed him before he
sees you. He's always rather tractible after he's fed."

Were ALL my dreams to go? Would they leave nothing to my shattered
ilusions? Alas, no.

"Jolly him a little, to," said----can I write it?--Mrs. Beecher. "Tell
him he's the greatest thing in the World. That will help some. He's
vain, you know, awfully vain. I expect he's written a lot of piffle."

Had they listened they would have heard a low, dry sob, wrung from
my tortured heart. But Mrs. Beecher had started a vibrater, and my
anguished cry was lost.

"Well," said Mrs. Patten, "Will has gone down to let him out, I expect
he'll attack him. He's got a vile Temper. I'll sit with you till he
comes back, if you don't mind. I'm feeling nervous."

It was indeed painful to recall the next half hour. I must tell the
truth however. They discussed us, especialy mother, who had not called.
They said that we thought we were the whole summer Colony, although
every one was afraid of mother's tongue, and nobody would marry Leila,
except Carter Brooks, and he was poor and no prospects. And that I was
an incorrigable, and carried on somthing gastly, and was going to be put
in a convent. I became justly furious and was about to step out and tell
them a few plain Facts, when sombody hammered at the door and then came
in. It was Mr. Patten.

"He's gone!" he said.

"Well, he won't go far, in bathing trunks," said Mrs. Beecher.

"That's just it. His bathing trunks are there."

"Well, he won't go far WITHOUT them!"

"He's gone so far I can't locate him."

I heard Mrs. Beecher get up.

"Are you in ernest, Will?" she said. "Do you mean that he has gone
without a Stich of clothes, and can't be found?"

Mrs. Patten gave a sort of screach.

"You don't think--oh Will, he's so tempermental. You don't think he's
drowned himself?"

"No such luck," said Mrs. Beecher, in a cold tone. I hated her for it.
True, he had decieved me. He was not as I had thought him. In our to
conversations he had not mentioned his wife, leaveing me to beleive him
free to love "where he listed," as the poet says.

"There are a few clues," said Mr. Patten. "He got out by means of a wire
hairpin, for one thing. And he took the manuscript with him, which he'd
hardly have done if he meant to drown himself. Or even if, as we fear,
he had no Pockets. He has smoked a lot of cigarettes out of a candy box,
which I did not supply him, and he left behind a bath towle that does
not, I think, belong to us."

"I should think he would have worn it," said Mrs. Beecher, in a
scornfull tone.

"Here's the bath towle," Mr. Patten went on. "You may recognize the
initials. I don't."

"B. P. A.," said Mrs. Beecher. "Look here, don't they call that--that
fliberty-gibbet next door `Barbara'?"

"The little devil!" said Mr. Patten, in a raging tone. "She let him out,
and of course he's done no work on the Play or anything. I'd like to
choke her."

Nobody spoke then, and my heart beat fast and hard. I leave it to
anybody, how they'd like to be shut in a closet and threatened with a
violent Death from without. Would or would they not ever be the same
person afterwards?

"I'll tell you what I'd do," said the Beecher woman. "I'd climb up the
back of father, next door, and tell him what his little Daughter has
done, Because I know she's mixed up in it, towle or no towle. Reg is
always sappy when they're seventeen. And she's been looking moon-eyed at
him for days."

Well, the Pattens went away, and Mrs. Beecher manacured her Nails,--I
could hear her fileing them--and sang around and was not much concerned,
although for all she knew he was in the briney deep, a corpse. How true
it is that "the paths of glory lead but to the grave."

I got very tired and much hoter, and I sat down on the floor. After what
seemed like hours, Mrs. Patten came back, all breathless, and she said:

"The girl's gone to, Clare."

"What girl?"

"Next door. If you want Excitement, they've got it. The mother is in
hysterics and there's a party searching the beech for her body, The
truth is, of course, if that towle means anything."

"That Reg has run away with her, of course," said Mrs. Beecher, in a
resined tone. "I wish he would grow up and learn somthing. He's becoming
a nusance. And when there are so many Interesting People to run away
with, to choose that chit!"

Yes, she said that, And in my retreat I could but sit and listen, and
of course perspire, which I did freely. Mrs. Patten went away, after
talking about the "scandle" for some time. And I sat and thought of the
beech being searched for my Body, a thought which filled my Eyes with
tears of pity for what might have been, I still hoped Mrs. Beecher would
go to bed, but she did not. Through the key hole I could see her with a
Book, reading, and not caring at all that Mr. Beecher's body, and mine
to, might be washing about in the cruel Sea, or have eloped to New York.

I lothed her.

At last I must have slept, for a bell rang, and there I was still in the
closet, and she was ansering it.

"Arrested?" she said, "Well, I should think he'd better be, If what you
say about clothing is true.... Well, then--what's he arrested for?...
Oh, kidnaping! Well, if I'm any judge, they ought to arrest the
Archibald girl for kidnaping HIM. No, don't bother me with it tonight.
I'll try to read myself to sleep."

So this was Marriage! Did she flee to her unjustly acused husband's side
and comfort him? Not she. She went to bed.

At daylight, being about smotherd, I opened the closet door and drew a
breath of fresh air. Also I looked at her, and she was asleep, with her
hair in patent wavers. Ye gods!

The wife of Reginald Beecher thus to distort her looks at night! I could
not bare it.

I averted my eyes, and on my tiptoes made for the Window.

My sufferings were over. In a short time I had slid down and was making
my way through the dewey morn toward my home. Before the sun was up,
or more than starting, I had climbed to my casement by means of a wire
trellis, and put on my ROBE DE NUIT. But before I settled to sleep
I went to the pantrey and there satisfied the pangs of nothing since
Breakfast the day before. All the lights seemed to be on, on the lower
floor, which I considered wastful of Tanney, the butler. But being
sleepy, gave it no further thought. And so to bed, as the great English
dairy-keeper, Pepys, had said in his dairy.

It seemed but a few moments later that I heard a scream, and opening my
eyes, saw Leila in the doorway. She screamed again, and mother came and
stood beside her. Although very drowsy, I saw that they still wore their
dinner clothes.

They stared as if transfixed, and then mother gave a low moan, and said
to Sis:

"That unfortunate man has been in Jail all night."

And Sis said: "Jane Raleigh is crazy. That's all." Then they looked at
me, and mother burst into tears. But Sis said:

"You little imp! Don't tell me you've been in that bed all night. I KNOW
BETTER."

I closed my eyes. They were not of the understanding sort, and never
would be.

"If that's the way you feel I shall tell you nothing," I said wearily.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" mother said, in a slow and dreadful voice.

Well, I saw then that a part of the Truth must be disclosed, especialy
since she has for some time considered sending me to a convent, although
without cause, and has not done so for fear of my taking the veil. So I
told her this. I said:

"I spent the night shut in a clothes closet, but where is not my secret.
I cannot tell you."

"Barbara! You MUST tell me."

"It is not my secret alone, mother."

She caught at the foot of the bed.

"Who was shut with you in that closet?" she demanded in a shaking voice.
"Barbara, there is another wreched Man in all this. It could not have
been Mr. Beecher, because he has been in the Station House all night."

I sat up, leaning on one elbow, and looked at her ernestly.

"Mother" I said, "you have done enough damage, interfering with
Careers--not only mine, but another's imperiled now by not haveing a
last Act. I can tell you no More, except"--here my voice took on a deep
and intence fiber--"that I have done nothing to be ashamed of, although
unconventional."

Mother put her hands to her Face, and emited a low, despairing cry.

"Come," Leila said to her, as to a troubled child. "Come, and Hannah can
use the vibrater on your spine."

So she went, but before she left she said:

"Barbara, if you will only promise to be a good girl, and give us a
chance to live this Scandle down, I will give you anything you ask for."

"Mother!" Sis said, in an angry tone.

"What can I do, Leila?" mother said. "The girl is atractive, and
probably men will always be following her and making trouble. Think of
last Winter. I know it is Bribery, but it is better than Scandle."

"I want nothing, mother," I said, in a low, heartstricken tone, "save to
be allowed to live my own life and to have a Career."

"My Heavens," mother said, "if I hear that word again, I'll go crazy."

So she went away, and Sis came over and looked down at me.

"Well!" she said. "What's happened anyhow? Of course you've been up to
some Mischeif, but I don't suppose anybody will ever know the Truth
of it. I was hopeing you'd make it this time and get married, and stop
worrying us."

"Go away, please, and let me Sleep," I said. "As to getting married,
under no circumstances did I expect to marry him. He has a Wife already.
Personally, I think she's a totle loss. She wears patent wavers at
night, and sleeps with her Mouth open. But who am I to interfere with
the marriage bond? I never have and never will."

But Sis only gave me a wild look and went away.


This, dear readers and schoolmates, is the true story of my meeting with
and parting from Reginald Beecher, the playwright. Whatever the papers
may say, it is not true, except the Fact that he was recognized by Jane
Raleigh, who knew the suit he wore, when in the act of pawning his ring
to get money to escape from his captors (I. E., The Pattens) with. It
was the necktie which struck her first, and also his gilty expression.
As I was missing by that time, Jane put two and two together and made an
Elopement.

Sometimes I sit and think things over, my fingers wandering "over the
ivory keys" of the typewriter they gave me to promise not to elope with
anybody--although such a thing is far from my mind--and the World seems
a cruel and unjust place, especialy to those with ambition.

For Reginald Beecher is no longer my ideal, my Night of the pen. I will
tell about that in a few words.

Jane Raleigh and I went to a matinee late in September before returning
to our institutions of learning. Jane cluched my arm as we looked at our
programs and pointed to something.

How my heart beat! For whatever had come between us, I was still loyal
to him.

This was a new play by him!

"Ah," my heart seemed to say, "now again you will hear his dear words,
although spoken by alien mouths.

"The love seens----"

I could not finish. Although married and forever beyond me, I could
still hear his manly tones as issueing from the door of the Bath-house.
I thrilled with excitement. As the curtain rose I closed my eyes in
ecstacy.

"Bab!" Jane said, in a quavering tone.

I looked. What did I see? The bath-house itself, the very one. And as
I stared I saw a girl, wearing her hair as I wear mine, cross the stage
with a Bunch of Keys in her hand, and say to the bath-house door.

"Can't I do somthing to help? I do so want to help you."

MY VERY WORDS.

And a voice from beyond the bath-house door said:

"Who's that?"

HIS WORDS.

I could bare no more. Heedless of Jane's Protests and Anguish, I got
up and went out, into the light of day. My body was bent with misry.
Because at last I knew that, like mother and all the rest, HE TO DID
NOT UNDERSTAND ME, AND NEVER WOULD. To him I was but material, the stuff
that plays are made of!

And now we know that he never could know,
And did not understand.
Kipling.

Ignoring Jane's observation that the tickets had cost two dollars each,
I gathered up the scattered Skeins of my life together, and fled.