Bab: A Sub-Deb (21 page)

"You have your own income."

That reminded me of the reason for my having sought the privasy of my Chamber. I said:

"Jane, I am thinking of buying an automobile. Not a Limousine, but somthing styleish and fast. I must have Speed, if nothing else."

She stopped eating a caromel and gave me a stunned look.

"What for?"

"For emergencies."

"Then they disaprove of him?" she said, in a low, tence voice.

"They know but little, although what they suspect--Jane," I said, my bitterness bursting out, "what am I now? Nothing. A prisoner, or the equivalent of such, forbiden everything because I am to young! My Soul hampered by being taken to the country where there is nothing to do, given a pony cart, although but 2O months younger than Leila, and not going to come out until she is married, or permanently engaged."

"It IS hard," said Jane. "Heart-breaking, Bab."

We sat, in deep and speachless gloom. At last Jane said:

"Has she anyone in sight?"

"How do I know? They keep me away at School all year. I am but a stranger here, although I try hard to be otherwise."

"Because we might help along, if there is anyone. To get her married is your only hope, Bab. They're afraid of you. That's all. You're the tipe to atract Men, except your noze, and you could help that by pulling it. My couzin did that, only she did it to much, and made it pointed."

I looked in my mirror and sighed. I have always desired an aristocratic noze, but a noze cannot be altered like teeth, unless broken and then generaly not improved.

"I have tried a shell hair pin at night, but it falls off when I go to sleep," I said, in a despondant manner.

We sat for some time, eating caromels and thinking about Leila, because there was nothing to do with my noze, but Leila was diferent.

"Although," Jane said, "you will never be able to live your own Life until she is gone, Bab."

"There is Carter Brooks," I suggested. "But he is poor. And anyhow she is not in Love with him."

"Leila is not one to care about Love," said Jane. "That makes it eazier."

"But whom?" I said. "Whom, Jane?"

We thought and thought, but of course it was hard, for we knew none of those who filled my sister's life, or sent her flours and so on.

At last I said:

"There must be a way, Jane. THERE MUST BE. And if not, I shall make one. For I am desparate. The mere thought of going back to school, when I am as old as at present and engaged also, is madening."

But Jane held out a warning hand.

"Go slow, dearie," she said, in a solemn tone. "Do nothing rash. Remember this, that she is your sister, and should be hapily married if at all. Also she needs one with a strong hand to control her. And such are not easy to find. You must not ruin her Life."

Considering the fatal truth of that, is it any wonder that, on contemplateing the events that folowed, I am ready to cry, with the great poet Hood: 1835-1874: whose numerous works we studied during the spring term:

Alas, I have walked through life To heedless where I trod; Nay, helping to trampel my fellow worm, And fill the burial sod.

II

If I were to write down all the surging thoughts that filled my brain this would have to be a Novel instead of a Short Story. And I am not one who beleives in beginning the life of Letters with a long work. I think one should start with breif Romanse. For is not Romanse itself but breif, the thing of an hour, at least to the Other Sex?

Women and girls, having no interest outside their hearts, such as baseball and hockey and earning saleries, are more likely to hug Romanse to their breasts, until it is finaly drowned in their tears.

I pass over the next few days, therfore, mearly stating that my AFFAIRE DE COUER went on rapidly, and that Leila was sulkey AND HAD NO MALE VISITORS. On the day after the Ball Game Tom took me for a walk, and in a corner of the park, he took my hand and held it for quite a while. He said he had never been a hand-holder, but he guessed it was time to begin. Also he remarked that my noze need not worry me, as it exactly suited my face and nature.

"How does it suit my nature?" I asked.

"It's--well, it's cute."

"I do not care about being cute, Tom," I said ernestly. "It is a word I despize."

"Cute means kissible, Bab!" he said, in an ardent manner.

"I don't beleive in kissing."

"Well," he observed, "there is kissing and kissing."

But a nurse with a baby in a perambulater came along just then and nothing happened worth recording. As soon as she had passed, however, I mentioned that kissing was all right if one was engaged, but not otherwise. And he said:

"But we are, aren't we?"

Although understood before, it had now come in full force. I, who had been but Barbara Archibald before, was now engaged. Could it be I who heard my voice saying, in a low tone, the "yes" of Destiny? It was!

We then went to the corner drug-store and had some soda, although forbiden by my Familey because of city water being used. How strange to me to recall that I had once thought the Clerk nice-looking, and had even purchaced things there, such as soap and chocolate, in order to speak a few words to him!

I was engaged, dear Reader, but not yet kissed. Tom came into our vestabule with me, and would doubtless have done so when no one was passing, but that George opened the door suddenly.

However, what difference, when we had all the rest of our Lives to kiss in? Or so I then considered.

Carter Brooks came to dinner that night because his people were out of town, and I think he noticed that I looked mature and dignafied, for he stared at me a lot. And father said:

"Bab, you're not eating. Is it possable that that boarding school hollow of yours is filling up?"

One's Familey is apt to translate one's finest Emotions into terms of food and drink. Yet could I say that it was my Heart and not my Stomache that was full? I could not.

During dinner I looked at Leila and wondered how she could be married off. For until so I would continue to be but a Child, and not allowed to be engaged or anything. I thought if she would eat some starches it would help, she being pretty but thin. I therfore urged her to eat potatos and so on, because of evening dress and showing her coller bones, but she was quite nasty.

"Eat your dinner," she said in an unfraternal maner, "and stop watching me. They're MY bones."

"I have no intention of being criticle," I said. "And they are vour bones, although not a matter to brag about. But I was only thinking, if you were fater and had a permanant wave put in your hair, because one of the girls did and it hardly broke off at all"

She then got up and flung down her napkin.

"Mother!" she said. "Am I to stand this sort of thing indefinately? Because if I am I shall go to France and scrub floors in a Hospitle."

Well, I reflected, that would be almost as good as having her get married. Besides being a good chance to marry over there, the unaform being becoming to most, especialy of Leila's tipe.

That night, in the drawing room, while Sis sulked and father was out and mother was ofering the cook more money to go to the country, I said to Carter Brooks:

"Why don't you stop hanging round, and make her marry you?"

"I'd like to know what's running about in that mad head of yours, Bab," he said. "Of course if you say so I'll try, but don't count to much on it. I don't beleive she'll have me. But why this unseemly haste?"

So I told him, and he understood perfectly, although I did not say that I had already plited my troth.

"Of course," he said. "If that fails there is another method of aranging things, although you may not care to have the Funeral Baked Meats set fourth to grace the Marriage Table. If she refuses me, we might become engaged. You and I."

To proposals in one day. Ye gods!

I was obliged therfore to tell him I was already engaged, and he looked very queer, especialy when I told him to whom it was.

"Pup!" he said, in a manner which I excused because of his natural feelings at being preceded. "And of course this is the real thing?"

"I am not one to change easily, Carter" I said. "When I give I give freely. A thing like this, with me, is to Eternaty, and even beyond."

He is usualy most polite, but he got up then and said:

"Well, I'm dammed."

He went away soon after, and left Sis and me to sit alone, not speaking, because when she is angry she will not speak to me for days at a time. But I found a Magazine picture of a Duchess in a nurse's dress and wearing a fringe, which is English for bangs, and put it on her dressing table.

I felt that this was subtile and would sink in.

The next day Jane came around early.

"There's a sail on down town, Bab," she said. "Don't you want to begin laying away underclothes for your TROUSEAU? You can't begin to soon, because it takes such a lot."

I have no wish to reflect on Jane in this story. She meant well. But she knew I had decided to buy an automobile, saying nothing to the Familey until to late, when I had learned to drive it and it could not be returned. Also she knew my Income, which was not princly although suficient.

But she urged me to take my Check Book and go to the sail.

Now, if I have a weakness, it is for fine under things, with ribbon of a pale pink and everything maching. Although I spent but fifty-eight dollars and sixty-five cents on the TROUSEAU that day, I felt uneasy, especialy as, just afterwards, I saw in a window a costume for a woman CHAUFFEUR, belted lether coat and leggings, skirt and lether cap.

I gave a check for it also, and on going home hid my Check Book, as Hannah was always snooping around and watching how much I spent. But luckaly we were packing for the country, and she did not find it.

During that evening I reflected about marrying Leila off, as the Familey was having a dinner and I was sent a tray to my Chamber, consisting of scrambeled eggs, baked potatos and junket, which considering that I was engaged and even then colecting my TROUSEAU, was to juvenile for words.

I decided this: that Leila was my sister and therfore bound to me by ties of Blood and Relationship. She must not be married to anyone, therfore, whom she did not love or at least respect. I would not doom her to be unhappy.

Now I have a qualaty which is well known at school, and frequently used to obtain holadays and so on. It may be Magnatism, it may be Will. I have a very strong Will, having as a child had a way of lying on the floor and kicking my feet if thwarted. In school, by fixing my eyes ridgidly on the teacher, I have been able to make her do as I wish, such as not calling on me when unprepared, et cetera.

Full well I know the danger of such a Power, unless used for good.

I now made up my mind to use this Will, or Magnatism, on Leila, she being unsuspicious at the time and thinking that the thought of Marriage was her own, and no one else's.

Being still awake when the Familey came upstairs, I went into her room and experamented while she was taking down her hair.

"Well?" she said at last. "You needn't stare like that. I can't do my hair this way without a Swich."

"I was merely thinking," I said in a lofty tone.

"Then go and think in bed."

"Does it or does it not concern you as to what I was thinking?" I demanded.

"It doesn't greatly concern me," she replied, wraping her hair around a kid curler, "but I darsay I know what it was. It's written all over you in letters a foot high. You'd like me to get married and out of the way."

I was exultent yet terrafied at this result of my Experament. Already! I said to my wildly beating heart. And if thus in five minutes what in the entire summer?

On returning to my Chamber I spent a pleasant hour planing my maid-of-honor gown, which I considered might be blue to mach my eyes, with large pink hat and carrying pink flours.

The next morning father and I breakfasted alone, and I said to him:

"In case of festivaty in the Familey, such as a Wedding, is my Allowence to cover clothes and so on for it?"

He put down his paper and searched me with a peircing glanse. Although pleasant after ten A. M. he is not realy paternal in the early morning, and when Mademoiselle was still with us was quite hateful to her at times, asking her to be good enough not to jabber French at him untill evening when he felt stronger.

"Whose Wedding?" he said.

"Well," I said. "You've got to Daughters and we might as well look ahead."

"I intend to have to Daughters," he said, "for some time to come. And while we're on the subject, Bab, I've got somthing to say to you. Don't let that romantic head of yours get filled up with Sweethearts, because you are still a little girl, with all your airs. If I find any boys mooning around here, I'll--I'll shoot them."

Ye gods! How intracate my life was becoming! I engaged and my masculine parent convercing in this homacidal manner! I withdrew to my room and there, when Jane Raleigh came later, told her the terrable news.

"Only one thing is to be done, Jane," I said, my voice shaking. "Tom must be warned."

"Call him up," said Jane, "and tell him to keep away."

But this I dare not do.

"Who knows, Jane," I observed, in a forlorn manner, "but that the telephone is watched? They must suspect. But how? HOW?"

Jane was indeed a FIDUS A CHATES. She went out to the drug store and telephoned to Tom, being careful not to mention my name, because of the clerk at the soda fountain listening, saying merely to keep away from a Certain Person for a time as it was dangerous. She then merely mentioned the word "revolver" as meaning nothing to the clerk but a great deal to Tom. She also aranged a meeting in the Park at 3 P. M. as being the hour when father signed his mail before going to his Club to play bridge untill dinner.

Our meeting was a sad one. How could it be otherwise, when to loving Hearts are forbiden to beat as one, or even to meet? And when one or the other is constantly saying:

"Turn your back. There is some one I know coming!"

Or:

"There's the Peters's nurse, and she's the worst talker you ever heard of." And so on.