Bab: A Sub-Deb (16 page)

"Socialism!" said Carter. "Hard stuff to handle for the two dollar seats. The world owes him a living. Humph! Still, that's a good line to work on. Look here, Bab, give me a little time on this, eh what? I may be able to think of a trick or two. But mind, not a word to any one."

He started out, but he came back.

"Look here," he said. "Where do we come in on this anyhow? Suppose I do think of somthing--what then? How are we to know that your beloved and his manager will thank us for buting in, or do what we sugest?"

Again I drew myself to my full heighth.

"I am a person of iron will when my mind is made up," I said. "You think of somthing, Carter, and I'll see that it is done."

He gazed at me in a rapt manner.

"Dammed if I don't beleive you," he said.

It is now late at night. Beresford has gone. The house is still. I take the dear Picture out from under my mattress and look at it.

Oh Adrien, my Thespian, my Love.

JANUARY 21ST. I have a bad cold, Dear Dairy, and feel rotten. But only my physicle condition is such. I am happy beyond words. This morning, while mother and Sis were out I called up the theater and inquired the price of a box. The man asked me to hold the line, and then came back and said it would be ten dollars. I told him to reserve it for Miss Putnam--my middle name.

I am both terrafied and happy, dear Dairy, as I lie here in bed with a hot water bottle at my feet. I have helped the Play by buying a box, and tonight I shall sit in it alone, and he will percieve me there, and consider that I must be at least twenty, or I would not be there at the theater alone. Hannah has just come in and offered to lend me three dollars. I refused hautily, but at last rang for her and took two. I might as well have a taxi tonight.

1 A. M. THE FAMILEY WAS THERE. I might have known it. Never do I have any luck. I am a broken thing, crushed to earth. But "Truth crushed to earth will rise again."--Whittier?

I had my dinner in bed, on account of my cold, and was let severly alone by the Familey. At seven I rose and with palpatating fingers dressed myself in my best evening Frock, which is a pale yellow. I put my hair up, and was just finished, when mother nocked. It was terrable.

I had to duck back into bed and crush everything. But she only looked in and said to try and behave for the next three hours, and went away.

At a quarter to eight I left the house in a clandestine manner by means of the cellar and the area steps, and on the pavment drew a long breath. I was free, and I had twelve dollars.

Act One went well, and no disturbence. Although Adrian started when he saw me. The yellow looked very well.

I had expected to sit back, sheltered by the curtains, and only visable from the stage. I have often read of this method. But there were no curtains. I therfore sat, turning a stoney profile to the Audiance, and ignoreing it, as though it were not present, trusting to luck that no one I knew was there.

He saw me. More than that, he hardly took his eyes from the box wherein I sat. I am sure to that he had mentioned me to the Company, for one and all they stared at me until I think they will know me the next time they see me.

I still think I would not have been recognized by the Familey had I not, in a very quiet seen, commenced to sneaze. I did this several times, and a lot of people looked anoyed, as though I sneazed because I liked to sneaze. And I looked back at them defiantly, and in so doing, encountered the gaze of my Maternal Parent.

Oh, Dear Dairy, that I could have died at that moment, and thus, when streched out a pathetic figure, with tubroses and other flowers, have compeled their pity. But alas, no. I sneazed again!

Mother was weged in, and I saw that my only hope was flight. I had not had more than between three and four dollars worth of the evening, but I glansed again and Sis was boring holes into me with her eyes. Only Beresford knew nothing, and was trying to hold Sis's hand under her opera cloak. Any fool could tell that.

But, as I was about to rise and stand poized, as one may say, for departure, I caught Adrian's eyes, with a gleam in their deep depths. He was, at the moment, toying with the bowl of roses. He took one out, and while the Leading Lady was talking, he eged his way toward my box. There, standing very close, aparently by accident, he droped the rose into my lap.

Oh Dairy! Dairy!

I picked it up, and holding it close to me, I flew.

I am now in bed and rather chilley. Mother banged at the door some time ago, and at last went away, mutering.

I am afraid she is going to be petish.

JANUARY 22ND. Father came home this morning, and things are looking up. Mother of course tackeled him first thing, and when he came upstairs I expected an awful time. But my father is a reel Person, so he only sat down on the bed, and said:

"Well, chicken, so you're at it again!"

I had to smile, although my chin shook.

"You'd better turn me out and forget me," I said. "I was born for Trouble. My advice to the Familey is to get out from under. That's all."

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "It's pretty conveniant to have a Familey to drop on when the slump comes." He thumped himself on the chest. "A hundred and eighty pounds," he observed, "just intended for little daughters to fall back on when other things fail."

"Father," I inquired, putting my hand in his, because I had been bearing my burdens alone, and my strength was failing: "do you beleive in Love?"

"DO I!"

"But I mean, not the ordinery atachment between two married people. I mean Love--the reel thing."

"I see! Why, of course I do."

"Did you ever read Pope, father?"

"Pope? Why I--probably, chicken. Why?"

"Then you know what he says: `Curse on all laws but those which Love has made.'"

"Look here," he said, sudenly laying a hand on my brow. "I beleive you are feverish."

"Not feverish, but in trouble," I explained. And so I told him the story, not saying much of my deep Passion for Adrian, but merely that I had formed an atachment for him which would persist during Life. Although I had never yet exchanged a word with him.

Father listened and said it was indeed a sad story, and that he knew my deep nature, and that I would be true to the End. But he refused to give me any money, except enough to pay back Hannah and Carter Brooks, saying:

"Your mother does not wish you to go to the Theater again, and who are we to go against her wishes? And anyhow, maybe if you met this fellow and talked to him, you would find him a disapointment. Many a pretty girl I have seen in my time, who didn't pan out acording to specifications when I finaly met her."

At this revalation of my beloved father's true self, I was almost stuned. It is evadent that I do not inherit my being true as steal from him. Nor from my mother, who is like steal in hardness but not in being true to anything but Social Position.

As I record this awfull day, dear Dairy, there comes again into my mind the thought that I DO NOT BELONG HERE. I am not like them. I do not even resemble them in features. And, if I belonged to them, would they not treat me with more consideration and less disipline? Who, in the Familey, has my noze?

It is all well enough for Hannah to observe that I was a pretty baby with fat cheaks. May not Hannah herself, for some hiden reason, have brought me here, taking away the real I to perhaps languish unseen and "waste my sweetness on the dessert air"? But that way lies madness. Life must be made the best of as it is, and not as it might be or indeed ought to be.

Father promised before he left that I was not to be scolded, as I felt far from well, and was drinking water about every minute.

"I just want to lie here and think about things," I said, when he was going. "I seem to have so many thoughts. And father----"

"Yes, chicken."

"If I need any help to carry out a plan I have, will you give it to me, or will I have to go to totle strangers?"

"Good gracious, Bab!" he exclaimed. "Come to me, of course."

"And you'll do what you're told?"

He looked out into the hall to see if mother was near. Then, dear Dairy, he turned to me and said:

"I always have, Bab. I guess I'll run true to form."

JANUARY 23RD. Much better today. Out and around. Familey (mother and Sis) very dignafied and nothing much to say. Evadently have promised father to restrain themselves. Father rushed and not coming home to dinner.

Beresford on edge of proposeing. Sis very jumpy.

LATER: Jane Raleigh is home for her couzin's wedding! Is coming over. We shall take a walk, as I have much to tell her.

6 P. M. What an afternoon! How shall I write it? This is a Milestone in my Life.

I have met him at last. Nay, more. I have been in his dressing room, conversing as though acustomed to such things all my life. I have conceled under the mattress a real photograph of him, beneath which he has written Yours always, Adrian Egleston."

I am writing in bed, as the room is chilley--or I am--and by putting out my hand I can touch His pictured likeness.

Jane came around for me this afternoon, and mother consented to a walk. I did not have a chance to take Sis's pink hat, as she keeps her door locked now when not in her room. Which is rediculous, because I am not her tipe, and her things do not suit me very well anyhow. And I have never borowed anything but gloves and handkercheifs, except Maidie's dress and the hat.

She had, however, not locked her bathroom, and finding a bunch of violets in the washbowl I put them on. It does not hurt violets to wear them, and anyhow I knew Carter Brooks had sent them and she ought to wear only Beresford's flowers if she means to marry him.

Jane at once remarked that I looked changed.

"Naturaly," I said, in a BLASE maner.

"If I didn't know you, Bab," she observed, "I would say that you are rouged."

I became very stiff and distant at that. For Jane, although my best friend, had no right to be suspicous of me.

"How do I look changed?" I demanded.

"I don't know. You--Bab, I beleive you are up to some mischeif!"

"Mischeif?"

"You don't need to pretend to me," she went on, looking into my very soul. "I have eyes. You're not decked out this way for ME."

I had meant to tell her nothing, but spying just then a man ahead who walked like Adrian, I was startled. I cluched her arm and closed my eyes.

"Bab!" she said.

The man turned, and I saw it was not he. I breathed again. But Jane was watching me, and I spoke out of an overflowing Heart.

"For a moment I thought--Jane, I have met THE ONE at last."

"Barbara!" she said, and stopped dead. "Is it any one I know?"

"He is an Actor."

"Ye gods!" said Jane, in a tence voice. "What a tradgedy!"

"Tradgedy indeed," I was compeled to admit. "Jane, my Heart is breaking. I am not alowed to see him. It is all off, forever."

"Darling!" said Jane. "You are trembling all over. Hold on to me. Do they disaprove?"

"I am never to see him again. Never."

The bitterness of it all overcame me. My eves sufused with tears.

But I told her, in broken accents, of my determination to stick to him, no matter what. I might never be Mrs. Adrian Egleston, but----"

"Adrian Egleston!" she cried, in amazement. "Why BARBARA, you lucky Thing!"

So, finding her fuller of simpathy than usual, I violated my Vow of Silence and told her all.

And, to prove the truth of what I said, I showed her the sachet over my heart containing his rose.

"It's perfectly wonderfull," Jane said, in an awed tone. "You beat anything I've ever known for Adventures. You are the tipe men like, for one thing. But there is one thing I could not stand, in your place--having to know that he is making love to the heroine every evening and twice on Wednesdays and--Bab, this is WEDNESDAY!"

I glansed at my wrist watch. It was but to o'clock. Instantly, dear Dairy, I became conscious of a dual going on within me, between love and duty. Should I do as instructed and see him no more, thus crushing my inclination under the iron heal of Resolution? Or should I cast my Parents to the winds, and go?

Which?

At last I desided to leave it to Jane. I observed: "I'm forbiden to try to see him. But I darsay, if you bought some theater tickets and did not say what the play was, and we went and it happened to be his, it would not be my fault, would it?"

I cannot recall her reply, or much more, except that I waited in a Pharmasy, and Jane went out, and came back and took me by the arm.

"We're going to the matinee, Bab," she said. "I'll not tell you which one, because it's to be a surprize." She squeazed my arm. "First row," she whispered.

I shall draw a Veil over my feelings. Jane bought some chocolates to take along, but I could eat none. I was thirsty, but not hungry. And my cold was pretty bad, to.

So we went in, and the curtain went up. When Adrian saw me, in the front row, he smiled although in the midst of a serious speach about the world oweing him a living. And Jane was terrably excited.

"Isn't he the handsomest Thing!" she said. "And oh, Bab, I can see that he adores you. He is acting for you. All the rest of the people mean nothing to him. He sees but you."

Well, I had not told her that we had not yet met, and she said I could do nothing less than send him a note.

"You ought to tell him that you are true, in spite of everything," she said.

If I had not decieved Jane things would be better. But she was set on my sending the note. So at last I wrote one on my visiting card, holding it so she could not read it. Jane is my best friend and I am devoted to her, but she has no scruples about reading what is not meant for her. I said:

"Dear Mr. Egleston: I think the Play is perfectly wonderfull. And you are perfectly splendid in it. It is perfectly terrable that it is going to stop. "(Signed) The girl of the rose."

I know that this seems bold. But I did not feel bold, dear Dairy. It was such a letter as any one might read, and contained nothing compromizing. Still, I darsay I should not have written it. But "out of the fulness of the Heart the mouth speaketh."