I shall also send a copy to Carter Brooks, who came out handsomly with an apoligy this morning in a letter and a ten pound box of Candy.
His letter explains everything. H. is a real person and did not come out of a Cabinet. Carter recognized the photograph as being one of a Mr. Grosvenor he went to college with, who had gone on the stage and was playing in a stock company at home. Only they were not playing Xmas week, as business, he says, is rotten then. When he saw me writing the letter he felt that it was all a bluff, especialy as he had seen me sending myself the violets at the florists.
So he got Mr. Grosvenor, the blonde one, to pretend he was Harold Valentine. Only things slipped up. I quote from Carter's letter:
"He's a bully chap, Bab, and he went into it for a lark, roses and poems and all. But when he saw that you took it rather hard, he felt it wasn't square. He went to your father to explain and apologized, but your father seemed to think you needed a lesson. He's a pretty good Sport, your father. And he said to let it go on for a day or two. A little worry wouldn't hurt you."
However, I do not call it being a good sport to see one's daughter perfectly wreched and do nothing to help. And more than that, to willfully permit one's child to suffer, and enjoy it.
But it was father, after all, who got the Jolt, I think, when he saw me get out of the taxicab.
Therefore I will not explain, for a time. A little worry will not hurt him either.
I will not send him his copy for a week.
Perhaps, after all, I will give him somthing to worry about eventually. For I have recieved a box of roses, with no card, but a pen and ink drawing of a Gentleman in evening clothes crawling onto a fire-escape through an open window. He has dropped his Heart, and it is two floors below.
My narative has now come to a conclusion, and I will close with a few reflections drawin from my own sad and tradgic Experience. I trust the Girls of this School will ponder and reflect.
Deception is a very sad thing. It starts very easy, and without Warning, and everything seems to be going all right, and No Rocks ahead. When suddenly the Breakers loom up, and your frail Vessel sinks, with you on board, and maybe your dear Ones, dragged down with you.
Oh, what a tangeled Web we wieve, When first we practice to decieve. Sir Walter Scott.
CHAPTER II
THEME: THE CELEBRITY
WE have been requested to write, during this vacation, a true and varacious account of a meeting with any Celebrity we happened to meet during the summer. If no Celebrity, any interesting character would do, excepting one's own Familey.
But as one's own Familey is neither celebrated nor interesting, there is no temptation to write about it.
As I met Mr. Reginald Beecher this summer, I have chosen him as my Subject.
Brief history of the Subject: He was born in 1890 at Woodbury, N. J. Attended public and High Schools, and in 1910 graduated from Princeton University.
Following year produced first Play in New York, called Her Soul. Followed this by the Soul Mate, and this by The Divorce.
Description of Subject. Mr. Beecher is tall and slender, and wears a very small dark Mustache. Although but twenty-six years of age, his hair on close inspection reveals here and there a Silver Thread. His teeth are good, and his eyes amber, with small flecks of brown in them. He has been vacinated twice.
It has alwavs been one of my chief ambitions to meet a Celebrity. On one or two occasions we have had them at school, but they never sit at the Junior's table. Also, they are seldom connected with either the Drama or The Movies (a slang term but aparently taking a place in our Literature).
It was my intention, on being given this subject for my midsummer theme, to seek out Mrs. Bainbridge, a lady Author who has a cottage across the bay from ours, and to ask the privelege of sitting at her feet for a few hours, basking in the sunshine of her presence, and learning from her own lips her favorite Flower, her favorite Poem and the favorite child of her Brain.
Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well. Duke of Buckingham
I had meant to write my Theme on her, but I learned in time that she was forty years of age. Her work is therefore done. She has passed her active years, and I consider that it is not the past of American Letters which is at stake, but the future. Besides, I was more interested in the Drama than in Literature.
Posibly it is owing to the fact that the girls think I resemhle Julia Marlowe, that from my earliest years my mind has been turned toward the Stage. I am very determined and fixed in my ways, and with me to decide to do a thing is to decide to do it. I am not of a romantic Nature, however, and as I learned of the dangers of the theater, I drew back. Even a strong nature, such as mine is, on occassions, can be influenced. I therefore decided to change my plans, and to write Plays instead of acting in them.
At first I meant to write Comedies, but as I realized the graveity of life, and its bitterness and disapointments, I turned naturaly to Tradgedy. Surely, as dear Shakspeare says:
The world is a stage Where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one.
This explains my sinsere interest in Mr. Beecher. His Works were all realistic and sad. I remember that I saw the first one three years ago, when a mere Child, and became violently ill from crying and had to be taken home.
The school will recall that last year I wrote a Play, patterned on The Divorce, and that only a certain narowness of view on the part of the faculty prevented it being the Class Play. If I may be permited to express an opinion, we of the class of 1917 are not children, and should not be treated as such.
Encouraged by the Aplause of my class-mates, and feeling that I was of a more serious turn of mind than most of them, who seem to think of pleasure only, I decided to write a play during the summer. I would thus be improving my Vacation hours, and, I considered, keeping out of mischeif. It was pure idleness which had caused my Trouble during the last Christmas holidays. How true it is that the Devil finds work for idle Hands!
With a Play and this Theme I beleived that the Devil would give me up as a totle loss, and go elsewhere.
How little we can read the Future!
I now proceed to an account of my meeting and acquaintence with Mr. Beecher. It is my intention to conceal nothing. I can only comfort myself with the thought that my Motives were inocent, and that I was obeying orders and secureing material for a theme. I consider that the atitude of my Familey is wrong and cruel, and that my sister Leila, being only 2O months older, although out in Society, has no need to write me the sort of letters she has been writing. Twenty months is twenty months, and not two years, although she seems to think it is.
I returned home full of happy plans for my vacation. When I look back it seems strange that the gay and inocent young girl of the train can have heen I. So much that is tradgic has since happened. If I had not had a cinder in my eye things would have been diferent. But why repine? Fate frequently hangs thus on a single hair--an eye-lash, as one may say.
Father met me at the train. I had got the aformentioned cinder in my eye, and a very nice young man had taken it out for me. I still cannot see what harm there was in our chating together after that, especialy as we said nothing to object to. But father looked very disagreeable about it, and the young man went away in a hurry. But it started us off wrong, although I got him--father--to promise not to tell mother.
"I do wish you would be more careful, Bab," he said with a sort of sigh.
"Careful!" I said. "Then it's not doing Things, but being found out, that matters!"
"Careful in your conduct, Bab."
"He was a beautiful young man, father," I observed, sliping my arm through his.
"Barbara, Barbara! Your poor mother----"
"Now look here, father" I said. "If it was mother who was interested in him it might be troublesome. But it is only me. And I warn you, here and now, that I expect to be thrilled at the sight of a Nice Young Man right along. It goes up my back and out the roots of my
hair."
Well, my father is a real Person, so he told me to talk sense, and gave me twenty dollars, and agreed to say nothing about the young man to mother, if I would root for Canada against the Adirondacks for the summer, because of the Fishing.
Mother was waiting in the hall for me, but she held me off with both hands.
"Not until you have bathed and changed your clothing, Barbara," she said. "I have never had it."
She meant the whooping cough. The school will recall the epademic which ravaged us last June, and changed us from a peaceful institution to what sounded like a dog show.
Well, I got the same old room, not much fixed up, but they had put up diferent curtains anyhow, thank goodness. I had been hinting all spring for new Furnature, but my Familey does not take a hint unless it is cloroformed first, and I found the same old stuff there.
They beleive in waiting until a girl makes her Debut before giving her anything but the necessarys of life.
Sis was off for a week-end, but Hannah was there, and I kissed her. Not that I'm so fond of her, but I had to kiss sombody.
"Well, Miss Barbara!" she said. "How you've grown!"
That made me rather sore, because I am not a child any longer, but they all talk to me as if I were but six years old, and small for my age.
"I've stopped growing, Hannah," I said, with dignaty." At least, almost. But I see I still draw the nursery."
Hannah was opening my suitcase, and she looked up and said: "I tried to get you the Blue room, Miss Bab. But Miss Leila said she needed it for house Parties."
"Never mind," I said. "I don't care anything about Furnature. I have other things to think about, Hannah; I want the school room Desk up here."
"Desk!" she said, with her jaw drooping.
"I am writing now," I said. "I need a lot of ink, and paper, and a good Lamp. Let them keep the Blue room, Hannah, for their selfish purposes. I shall be happy in my work. I need nothing more."
"Writing!" said Hannah. "Is it a book you're writing?"
"A Play."
"Listen to the child! A Play!"
I sat on the edge of the bed.
"Listen, Hannah," I said. "It is not what is outside of us that matters. It is what is inside. It is what we are, not what we eat, or look like, or wear. I have given up everything, Hannah, to my Career."
"You're young yet," said Hannah. "You used to be fond enough of the Boys."
Hannah has been with us for years, so she gets rather talkey at times, and has to be sat upon.
"I care nothing whatever for the Other Sex," I replied hautily.
She was opening my suitcase at the time, and I was surveying the chamber which was to be the seen of my Literary Life, at least for some time.
"Now and then," I said to Hannah, "I shall read you parts of it. Only you mustn't run and tell mother."
"Why not?" said she, pearing into the Suitcase.
"Because I intend to deal with Life," I said. "I shall deal with real Things, and not the way we think them. I am young, but I have thought a great deal. I shall minse nothing."
"Look here, Miss Barbara," Hannah said, all at once, "what are you doing with this whiskey Flask? And these socks? And--you come right here, and tell me where you got the things in this Suitcase." I stocked over to the bed, and my blood frose in my vains. IT WAS NOT MINE.
Words cannot fully express how I felt. While fully convinsed that there had been a mistake, I knew not when or how. Hannah was staring at me with cold and accusing eyes.
"You're a very young Lady, Miss Barbara," she said, with her eyes full of Suspicion, "to be carrying a Flask about with you." I was as puzzled as she was, but I remained calm and to all apearances Spartan.
"I am young in years," I remarked. "But I have seen Life, Hannah."
Now I meant nothing by this at the time. But it was getting on my nerves to be put in the infant class all the time. The Xmas before they had done it, and I had had my revenge. Although it had hurt me more than it hurt them, and if I gave them a fright I gave myself a worse one. As I said at that time:
Oh, what a tangeled web we weive, When first we practice to decieve. Sir Walter Scott.
Hannah gave me a horrafied Glare, and dipped into the Suitcase again. She brought up a tin box of Cigarettes, and I thought she was going to have delerium tremens at once.
Well, at first I thought the girls at school had played a Trick on me, and a low down mean Trick at that. There are always those who think it is funny to do that sort of thing, but they are the first to squeel when anything is done to them. Once I put a small garter Snake in a girl's muff, and it went up her sleave, which is nothing to some of the things she had done to me. And you would have thought the School was on fire.
Anyhow, I said to myself that some Smarty was trying to get me into trouble, and Hannah would run to the Familey, and they'd never beleive me. All at once I saw all my cherished plans for the summer gone, and me in the Country somewhere with Mademoiselle, and walking through the pasture with a botany in one hand and a folding Cup in the other, in case we found a spring a cow had not stepped in. Mademoiselle was once my Governess, but has retired to private life, except in cases of emergency.
I am naturaly very quick in mind. The Archibalds are all like that, and when once we decide on a Course we stick to it through thick and thin. But we do not lie. It is rediculous for Hannah to say I said the cigarettes were mine. All I said was:
"I suppose you are going to tell the Familey. You'd better run, or you'll burst."
"Oh, Miss Barbara, Miss Barbara!" she said." And you so young to be so wild!"
This was unjust, and I am one to resent injustice. I had returned home with my mind fixed on serious Things, and now I was being told I was wild.
"If I tell your mother she'll have a fit," Hannah said, evadently drawn hither and thither by emotion. "Now see here, Miss Bab, you've just come Home, and there was trouble at your last vacation that I'm like to remember to my dieing day. You tell me how those things got there, like a good girl, and I'll say nothing about them."
I am naturaly sweet in disposition, but to call me a good girl and remind me of last Xmas holadays was too much. My natural firmness came to the front.
"Certainly NOT," I said.
"You needn't stick your lip out at me, Miss Bab, that was only giving you a chance, and forgetting my Duty to help you, not to mention probably losing my place when the Familey finds out."
"Finds out what?"
"What you've been up to, the stage, and writing plays, and now liquor and tobacco!"
Now I may be at fault in the Narative that follows. But I ask the school if this was fair treatment. I had returned to my home full of high Ideals, only to see them crushed beneath the heal of domestic tyranny.
Necessity is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. William Pitt.
How true are these immortal words.
It was with a firm countenance but a sinking heart that I saw Hannah leave the room. I had come home inspired with lofty Ambition, and it had ended thus. Heart-broken, I wandered to the bedside, and let my eyes fall on the Suitcase, the container of all my woe.
Well, I was surprised, all right. It was not and never had been mine. Instead of my blue serge sailor suit and my ROBE DE NUIT and kimona etc., it contained a checked gentleman's suit, a mussed shirt and a cap. At first I was merely astonished. Then a sense of loss overpowered me. I suffered. I was prostrated with grief. Not that I cared a Rap for the clothes I'd lost, being most of them to small and patched here and there. But I had lost the plot of my Play. My Career was gone.
I was undone.
It may be asked what has this Recitle to do with the account of meeting a Celebrity. I reply that it has a great deal to do with it. A bare recitle of a meeting may be News, but it is not Art.
A theme consists of Introduction, Body and Conclusion.
This is still the Introduction.
When I was at last revived enough to think I knew what had happened
. The young man who took the Cinder out of my eye had come to sit beside me, which I consider was merely kindness on his part and nothing like Flirting, and he had brought his Suitcase over, and they had got mixed up. But I knew the Familey would call it Flirting, and not listen to a word I said.
A madness siezed me. Now that everything is over, I realize that it was madness. But "there is a divinity that shapes our ends etc." It was to be. It was Karma, or Kismet, or whatever the word is. It was written in the Book of Fate that I was to go ahead, and wreck my life, and generaly ruin everything.
I locked the door behind Hannah, and stood with tradgic feet, "where the brook and river meet." What was I to do? How hide this evadence of my (presumed) duplicaty? I was inocent, but I looked gilty. This, as everyone knows, is worse than gilt.
I unpacked the Suitcase as fast as I could, therfore, and being just about destracted, I bundled the things up and put them all together in the toy Closet, where all Sis's dolls and mine are, mine being mostly pretty badly gone, as I was always hard on dolls.
How far removed were those Inocent Years when I played with dolls!
Well, I knew Hannah pretty well, and therfore was not surprised when, having hidden the trowsers under a doll buggy, I heard mother's voice at the door.
"Let me in, Barbara," she said.
I closed the closet door, and said: "What is it, mother?"
"Let me in."
So I let her in, and pretended I expected her to kiss me, which she had not yet, on account of the whooping cough. But she seemed to have forgotten that. Also the Kiss.
"Barbara," she said, in the meanest voice, "how long have you been smoking?"
Now I must pause to explain this. Had mother aproached me in a sweet and maternal manner, I would have been softened, and would have told the Whole Story. But she did not. She was, as you might say, steeming with Rage. And seeing that I was misunderstood, I hardened. I can be as hard as adamant when necessary.
The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart Page 156