Bab: A Sub-Deb (14 page)

"Oh, very well," I murmured, in a resined tone. "I don't care enough about it to want to dance with a lot of Souses anyhow."

"Barbara!" said mother.

"I suppose you have some one on the String for her," I said, with the ABANDON of my thwarted Hopes. "Well, I hope she gets him. Because if not I darsay I shall be kept in the Cradle for years to come."

"You will come out when vou reach a proper Age," she said, "if your Impertanence does not kill me off before my Time."

Dear Dairy, I am fond of my mother, and I felt repentent and stricken.

So I became more agreable, although feeling all the time that she does not and never will understand my Temperment. I said:

"I don't care about Society, and you know it, mother. If you'll keep Leila out of this room, which isn't much but is my Castle while here, I'll probably go to bed early."

"Barbara, sometimes I think you have no afection for your Sister."

I had agreed to honesty January first, so I replied.

"I have, of course, mother. But I am fonder of her while at school than at home. And I should be a better Sister if not condemed to her old things, including hats which do not suit my Tipe."

Mother moved over magestically to the door and shut it. Then she came and stood over me.

"I've come to the conclusion, Barbara," she said, "to appeal to your better Nature. Do you wish Leila to be married and happy?"

"I've just said, mother----"

"Because a very interesting thing is happening," said mother, trying to look playfull. "I--a chance any girl would jump at."

So here I sit, Dear Dairy, while there are sounds of revelery below, and Sis jumps at her chance, which is the Honorable Page Beres ford, who is an Englishman visiting here because he has a weak heart and can't fight. And father is away on business, and I am all alone.

I have been looking for a rash, but no luck.

Ah me, how the strains of the orkestra recall that magic night in the theater when Adrian Egleston looked down into my eyes and although ostensably to an actress, said to my beating heart: "My Darling! My Woman!"

3 A. M. I wonder if I can controll my hands to write.

In mother's room across the hall I can hear furious Voices, and I know that Leila is begging to have me sent to Switzerland. Let her beg. Switzerland is not far from England, and in England----

Here I pause to reflect a moment. How is this thing possible? Can I love to members of the Other Sex? And if such is the Case, how can I go on with my Life? Better far to end it now, than to perchance marry one, and find the other still in my heart. The terrable thought has come to me that I am fickel.

Fickel or polygamus--which?

Dear Dairy, I have not been a good girl. My New Year's Resolutions have gone to airey nothing.

The way they went was this: I had settled down to a quiet evening, spent with his beloved picture which I had clipped from a newspaper. (Adrian's. I had not as yet met the other.) And, as I sat in my chamber, I grew more and more desolate. I love Life, although pessamistic at times. And it seemed hard that I should be there, in exile, while my Sister, only 2O months older, was jumping at her chance below.

At last I decided to try on one of Sis's frocks and see how I looked in it. I though, if it looked all right, I might hang over the stairs and see what I then scornfully termed "His Nibs." Never again shall I so call him.

I got an evening gown from Sis's closet, and it fitted me quite well, although tight at the waste for me, owing to Basket Ball. It was also to low, so that when I had got it all hooked about four inches of my LINGERIE showed. As it had been hard as anything to hook, I was obliged to take the scizzors and cut off the said LINGERIE. The result was good, although very DECOLLTE. I have no bones in my neck, or practicaly so.

And now came my moment of temptation. How easy to put my hair up on my head, and then, by the servant's staircase, make my way to the seen below!

I, however, considered that I looked pale, although Mature. I looked at least nineteen. So I went into Sis's room, which was full of evening wraps but emty, and put on a touch of rouge. With that and my eyebrows blackend, I would not have known myself, had I not been certain it was I and no other.

I then made my way down the Back Stairs.

Ah me, Dear Dairy, was that but a few hours ago? Is it but a short time since Mr. Beresford was sitting at my feet, thinking me a DEBUTANTE, and staring soulfully into my very heart? Is it but a matter of minutes since Leila found us there, and in a manner which revealed the true feeling she has for me, ordered me to go upstairs and take off Maidie Mackenzie's gown?

(Yes, it was not Leila's after all. I had forgotten that Maidie had taken her room. And except for pulling it somewhat at the waste, I am sure I did not hurt the old thing.)

I shall now go to bed and dream. Of which one I know not. My heart is full. Romanse has come at last into my dull and dreary life. Below, the revelers have gone. The flowers hang their herbacious heads. The music has flowed away into the river of the past. I am alone with my Heart.

JANUARY 14TH. How complacated my Life grows, Dear Dairy! How full and yet how incomplete! How everything begins and nothing ends!

HE is in town.

I discovered it at breakfast. I knew I was in for it, and I got down early, counting on mother breakfasting in bed. I would have felt better if father had been at home, because he understands somwhat the way They keep me down. But he was away about an order for shells (not sea; war), and I was to bear my chiding alone. I had eaten my fruit and serial, and was about to begin on sausage, when mother came in, having risen early from her slumbers to take the decorations to the Hospital.

"So here you are, wreched child!" she said, giving me one of her coldest looks. "Barbara, I wonder if you ever think whither you are tending."

I ate a sausage.

What, Dear Dairy, was there to say?

"To disobey!" she went on. "To force yourself on the atention of Mr. Beresford, in a borowed dress, with your eyelashes blackend and your face painted----"

"I should think, mother," I observed, "that if he wants to marry into this family, and is not merely being dragged into it, that he ought to see the worst at the start." She glired, without speaking. "You know," I continued, "it would be a dreadfull thing to have the Ceramony performed and everything to late to back out, and then have ME Sprung on him. It wouldn't be honest, would it?"

"Barbara!" she said in a terrable tone. "First disobedience, and now sarcasm. If your father was only here! I feel so alone and helpless."

Her tone cut me to the Heart. After all she was my own mother, or at least maintained so, in spite of numerous questions enjendered by our lack of resemblence, moral as well as physicle. But I did not offer to embrase her, as she was at that moment poring out her tea. I hid my misery behind the morning paper, and there I beheld the fated vision. Had I felt any doubt as to the state of my afections it was settled then. My Heart leaped in my bosom. My face sufused. My hands trembled so that a piece of sausage slipped from my fork. HIS PICTURE LOOKED OUT AT ME WITH THAT WELL REMEMBERED GAZE FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE MORNING PAPER.

Oh, Adrian, Adrian!

Here in the same city as I, looking out over perchance the same newspaper to perchance the same sun, wondering--ah, what was he wondering?

I was not even then, in that first Rapture, foolish about him. I knew that to him I was probably but a tender memory. I knew, to, that he was but human and probably very concieted. On the other hand, I pride myself on being a good judge of character, and he carried Nobility in every linament. Even the obliteration of one eye by the printer could only hamper but not destroy his dear face.

"Barbara," mother said sharply. "I am speaking. Are you being sulkey?"

"Pardon me, mother," I said in my gentlest tones. "I was but dreaming." And as she made no reply, but rang the bell visciously, I went on, pursuing my line of thought. "Mother, were you ever in Love?"

"Love! What sort of Love?"

I sat up and stared at her.

"Is there more than one sort?" I demanded.

"There is a very silly, schoolgirl Love," she said, eyeing me, "that people outgrow and blush to look back on."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you blush to look back on it?"

Mother rose and made a sweeping gesture with her right arm.

"I wash my hands of you!" she said. "You are impertanent and indelacate. At your age I was an inocent child, not troubleing with things that did not concern me. As for Love, I had never heard of it until I came out."

"Life must have burst on you like an explosion," I observed. "I suppose you thought that babies----"

"Silense!" mother shreiked. And seeing that she persisted in ignoring the real things of Life while in my presence, I went out, cluching the precious paper to my Heart.

JANUARY 15TH. I am alone in my BOUDOIR (which is realy the old schoolroom, and used now for a sowing room).

My very soul is sick, oh Dairy. How can I face the truth? How write it out for my eyes to see? But I must. For SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. The play is failing.

The way I discovered it was this. Yesterday, being short of money, I sold my amethist pin to Jane, one of the housemaids, for two dollars, throwing in a lace coller when she seemed doubtful, as I had a special purpose for useing funds. Had father been at home I could have touched him, but mother is diferent.

I then went out to buy a frame for his picture, which I had repaired by drawing in the other eye, although licking the Fire and passionate look of the originle. At the shop I was compeled to show it, to buy a frame to fit. The clerk was almost overpowered.

"Do you know him?" she asked, in a low and throbing tone.

"Not intimitely," I replied.

"Don't you love the Play?" she said. "I'm crazy about it. I've been back three times. Parts of it I know off by heart. He's very handsome. That picture don't do him justise."

I gave her a searching glanse. Was it posible that, without any acquaintance with him whatever, she had fallen in love with him? It was indeed. She showed it in every line of her silly face.

I drew myself up hautily. "I should think it would be very expencive, going so often," I said, in a cool tone.

"Not so very. You see, the play is a failure, and they give us girls tickets to dress the house. Fill it up, you know. Half the girls in the store are crazy about Mr. Egleston."

My world shuddered about me. What--fail! That beautiful play, ending "My darling, my woman"? It could not be. Fate would not be cruel. Was there no apreciation of the best in Art? Was it indeed true, as Miss Everett has complained, although not in these exact words, that the Theater was only supported now by chorus girls' legs, dancing about in uter ABANDON?

With an expression of despair on my features, I left the store, carrying the Frame under my arm.

One thing is certain. I must see the play again, and judge it with a criticle eye. IF IT IS WORTH SAVING, IT MUST BE SAVED.

JANUARY 16TH. Is it only a day since I saw you, Dear Dairy? Can so much have happened in the single lapse of a few hours? I look in my mirror, and I look much as before, only with perhaps a touch of paller. Who would not be pale?

I have seen HIM again, and there is no longer any doubt in my heart. Page Beresford is atractive, and if it were not for circumstances as they are I would not anser for the consequences. But things ARE as they are. There is no changing that. And I have reid my own heart.

I am not fickel. On the contrary, I am true as steal.

I have put his Picture under my mattress, and have given Jane my gold cuff pins to say nothing when she makes my bed. And now, with the house full of People downstairs acting in a flippent and noisy maner, I shall record how it all happened.

My finantial condition was not improved this morning, father having not returned. But I knew that I must see the Play, as mentioned above, even if it became necesary to borow from Hannah. At last, seeing no other way, I tried this, but failed.

"What for?" she said, in a suspicous way."

"I need it terrably, Hannah," I said.

"You'd ought to get it from your mother, then, Miss Barbara. The last time I gave you some you paid it back in postage stamps, and I haven't written a letter since. They're all stuck together now, and a totle loss."

"Very well," I said, fridgidly. "But the next time you break anything----"

"How much do you want?" she asked.

I took a quick look at her, and I saw at once that she had desided to lend it to me and then run and tell mother, beginning, "I think you'd ought to know, Mrs. Archibald----"

"Nothing doing, Hannah," I said, in a most dignafied manner. "But I think you are an old Clam, and I don't mind saying so."

I was now thrown on my own resourses, and very bitter. I seemed to have no Friends, at a time when I needed them most, when I was, as one may say, "standing with reluctent feet, where the brook and river meet."

Tonight I am no longer sick of Life, as I was then. My throws of anguish have departed. But I was then uterly reckless, and even considered running away and going on the stage myself.

I have long desired a Career for mvself, anyhow. I have a good mind, and learn easily, and I am not a Paracite. The idea of being such has always been repugnent to me, while the idea of a few dollars at a time doaled out to one of independant mind is galling. And how is one to remember what one has done with one's Allowence, when it is mostly eaten up by Small Lones, Carfare, Stamps, Church Collection, Rose Water and Glicerine, and other Mild Cosmetics, and the aditional Food necesary when one is still growing?

To resume, Dear Dairy; having uterly failed with Hannah, and having shortly after met Sis on the stairs, I said to her, in a sisterly tone, intimite rather than fond:

"I darsay you can lend me five dollars for a day or so."

"I darsay I can. But I won't," was her cruel reply.

"Oh, very well," I said breifly. But I could not refrain from making a grimase at her back, and she saw me in a mirror.