The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  "What do you mean, mother?"

  "Don't anser one question with another."

  "How can I anser when I don't understand you?"

  She simply twiched with fury.

  "You--a mere Child!" she raved. "And I can hardly bring myself to mention it--the idea of your owning a Flask, and bringing it into this house--it is--it is----"

  Well, I was growing cold and more hauty every moment, so I said: "I don't see why the mere mention of a Flask upsets you so. It isn't because you aren't used to one, especialy when traveling. And since I was a mere baby I have been acustomed to intoxicants."

  "Barbara!" she intergected, in the most dreadful tone.

  "I mean, in the Familey," I said. "I have seen wine on our table ever since I can remember. I knew to put salt on a claret stain before I could talk."

  Well, you know how it is to see an Enemy on the run, and although I regret to refer to my dear mother as an Enemy, still at that moment she was such and no less. And she was beating it. It was the referance to my youth that had aroused me, and I was like a wounded lion. Besides, I knew well enough that if they refused to see that I was practicaly grown up, if not entirely, I would get a lot of Sis's clothes, fixed up with new ribbons. Faded old things! I'd had them for years.

  Better to be considered a bad woman than an unformed child.

  "However, mother," I finished, "if it is any comfort to you, I did not buy that Flask. And I am not a confirmed alcoholic. By no means."

  "This settles it," she said, in a melancoly tone. "When I think of the comfort Leila has been to me, and the anxiety you have caused, I wonder where you get your--your DEVILTRY from. I am posatively faint."

  I was alarmed, for she did look queer, with her face all white around the Rouge. So I reached for the Flask.

  "I'll give you a swig of this," I said. "It will pull you around in no time."

  But she held me off feircely.

  "Never!" she said. "Never again. I shall emty the wine cellar. There will be nothing to drink in this house from now on. I do not know what we are coming to."

  She walked into the bathroom, and I heard her emptying the Flask down the drain pipe. It was a very handsome Flask, silver with gold stripes, and all at once I knew the young man would want it back. So I said:

  "Mother, please leave the Flask here anyhow."

  "Certainly not."

  "It's not mine, mother."

  "Whose is it?"

  "It--a friend of mine loned it to me."

  "Who?"

  "I can't tell you."

  "You can't TELL me! Barbara, I am utterly bewildered. I sent you away a simple child, and you return to me--what?"

  Well, we had about an hour's fight over it, and we ended in a compromise. I gave up the Flask, and promised not to smoke and so forth, and I was to have some new dresses and a silk Sweater, and to be allowed to stay up until ten o'clock, and to have a desk in my room for my work.

  "Work!" mother said. "Career! What next? Why can't you be like Leila, and settle down to haveing a good time?"

  "Leila and I are diferent," I said loftily, for I resented her tone. "Leila is a child of the moment. Life for her is one grand, sweet Song. For me it is a serious matter. `Life is real, life is earnest, and the Grave is not its goal,'" I quoted in impasioned tones.

  (Because that is the way I feel. How can the Grave be its goal? THERE MUST BE SOMETHING BEYOND. I have thought it all out, and I beleive in a world beyond, but not in a hell. Hell, I beleive, is the state of mind one gets into in this world as a result of one's wicked Acts or one's wicked Thoughts, and is in one's self.)

  As I have said, the other side of the Compromise was that I was not to carry Flasks with me, or drink any punch at parties if it had a stick in it, and you can generally find out by the taste. For if it is what Carter Brooks calls "loaded" it stings your tongue. Or if it tastes like cider it's probably Champane. And I was not to smoke any cigarettes.

  Mother was holding out on the Sweater at that time, saying that Sis had a perfectly good one from Miami, and why not wear that? So I put up a strong protest about the cigarettes, although I have never smoked but once as I think the School knows, and that only half through, owing to getting dizzy. I said that Sis smoked now and then, because she thought it looked smart; but that, if I was to have a Career, I felt that the sootheing influence of tobaco would help a lot.

  So I got the new Sweater, and everything looked smooth again, and mother kissed me on the way out, and said she had not meant to be harsch, but that my great uncle Putnam had been a notorious drunkard, and I looked like him, although of a more refined tipe.

  There was a dreadful row that night, however, when father came home. We were all dressed for dinner, and waiting in the drawing room, and Leila was complaining about me, as usual.

  "She looks older than I do now, mother," she said. "If she goes to the seashore with us I'll have her always taging at my heals. I don't see why I can't have my first summer in peace." Oh, yes, we were going to the shore, after all. Sis wanted it, and everybody does what she wants, regardless of what they prefer, even Fishing.

  "First summer!" I exclaimed. "One would think you were a teething baby!"

  "I was speaking to mother, Barbara. Everyone knows that a Debutante only has one year nowadays, and if she doesn't go off in that year she's swept away by the flood of new Girls the next fall. We might as well be frank. And while Barbara's not a beauty, as soon as the bones in her neck get a little flesh on them she won't be hopeless, and she has a flipant manner that Men like."

  "I intend to keep Barbara under my eyes this summer," mother said firmly. "After last Xmas's happenings, and our Discovery today, I shall keep her with me. She need not, however, interfere with you, Leila. Her Hours are mostly diferent, and I will see that her friends are the younger boys."

  I said nothing, but I knew perfectly well she had in mind Eddie Perkins and Willie Graham, and a lot of other little kids that hang around the fruit Punch at parties, and throw the peas from the Croquettes at each other when the footmen are not near, and pretend they are allowed to smoke, but have sworn off for the summer.

  I was naturaly indignant at Sis's words, which were not filial, to my mind, but I replied as sweetly as possable:

  "I shall not be in your way, Leila. I ask nothing but Food and Shelter, and that perhaps not for long."

  "Why? Do you intend to die?" she demanded.

  "I intend to work," I said. "It's more interesting than dieing, and will be a novelty in this House."

  Father came in just then, and he said:

  "I'll not wait to dress, Clara. Hello, children. I'll just change my coller while you ring for the Cocktails."

  Mother got up and faced him with Magesty.

  "We are not going to have, any" she said.

  "Any what?" said father from the doorway.

  "I have had some fruit juice prepared with a dash of bitters. It is quite nice. And I'll ask you, James, not to explode before the servants. I will explain later."

  Father has a very nice disposition but I could see that mother's manner got on his Nerves, as it got on mine. Anyhow there was a terific fuss, with Sis playing the Piano so that the servants would not hear, and in the end father had a Cocktail. Mother waited until he had had it, and was quieter, and then she told him about me, and my having a Flask in my Suitcase. Of course I could have explained, but if they persisted in mis-understanding me, why not let them do so, and be miserable?

  "It's a very strange thing, Bab," he said, looking at me, "that everything in this House is quiet until you come home, and then we get as lively as kittens in a frying pan. We'll have to marry you off pretty soon, to save our piece of mind."

  "James!" said my mother. "Remember last winter, please."

  There was no Claret or anything with dinner, and father ordered mineral water, and criticised the food, and fussed about Sis's dressmaker's bill. And the second man gave notice immediately after we left the dining room. When mother reported tha
t, as we were having coffee in the drawing room, father said:

  "Humph! Well, what can you expect? Those fellows have been getting the best half of a bottle of Claret every night since they've been here, and now it's cut off. Damed if I wouldn't like to leave myself."

  From that time on I knew that I was watched. It made little or no diference to me. I had my Work, and it filled my life. There were times when my Soul was so filled with joy that I could hardly bare it. I had one act done in two days. I wrote out the Love seens in full, because I wanted to be sure of what they would say to each other. How I thrilled as each marvelous burst of Fantacy flowed from my pen! But the dialogue of less interesting parts I left for the actors to fill in themselves. I consider this the best way, as it gives them a chance to be original, and not to have to say the same thing over and over.

  Jane Raleigh came over to see me the day after I came home, and I read her some of the Love seens. She posatively wept with excitement.

  "Bab," she said, "if any man, no matter who, ever said those things to me, I'd go straight into his arms. I couldn't help it. Whose going to act in it?"

  "I think I'll have Robert Edeson, or Richard Mansfield."

  "Mansfield's dead," said Jane.

  "Honestly?"

  "Honest he is. Why don't you get some of these moveing picture actors? They never have a chance in the Movies, only acting and not talking."

  Well, that sounded logicle. And then I read her the place where the cruel first husband comes back and finds her married again and happy, and takes the Children out to drown them, only he can't because they can swim, and they pull him in instead. The curtain goes down on nothing but a few bubbles rising to mark his watery Grave.

  Jane was crying.

  "It is too touching for words, Bab!" she said. "It has broken my heart. I can just close my eyes aud see the Theater dark, and the stage almost dark, and just those bubbles coming up and breaking. Would you have to have a tank?"

  "I darsay," I replied dreamily. "Let the other people worry about that. I can only give them the material, and hope that they have intellagence enough to grasp it."

  I think Sis must have told Carter Brooks something about the trouble I was in, for he brought me a box of Candy one afternoon, and winked at me when mother was not looking.

  "Don't open it here," he whispered.

  So I was forced to controll my impatience, though passionately fond of Candy. And when I got to my room later, the box was full of cigarettes. I could have screamed. It just gave me one more thing to hide, as if a man's suit and shirt and so on was not suficient.

  But Carter paid more attention to me than he ever had before, and at a tea dance sombody had at the Country Club he took me to one side and gave me a good talking to.

  "You're being rather a bad child, aren't you?" he said.

  "Certainly not."

  "Well, not bad, but--er--naughty. Now see here, Bab, I'm fond of you, and you're growing into a mightey pretty girl. But your whole Social Life is at stake. For heaven's sake, at least until you're married, cut out the cigarettes and booze."

  That cut me to the heart, but what could I say?

  Well, July came, and we had rented a house at Little Hampton and everywhere one went one fell over an open trunk or a barrell containing Silver or Linen.

  Mother went around with her lips moving as if in prayer, but she was realy repeating lists, such as sowing basket, table candles, headache tablets, black silk stockings and tennis rackets.

  Sis got some lovely Clothes, mostly imported, but they had a woman come in and sow for me. Hannah and she used to interupt my most precious Moments at my desk by running a tape measure around me, or pinning a paper pattern to me. The sowing woman always had her mouth full of Pins, and once, owing to my remarking that I wished I had been illagitimate, so I could go away and live my own life, she swallowed one. It caused a grate deal of excitement, with Hannah blaming me and giving her vinigar to swallow to soften the pin. Well, it turned out all right, for she kept on living, but she pretended to have sharp pains all over her here and there, and if the pin had been as lively as a tadpole and wriggled from spot to spot, it could not have hurt in so many Places.

  Of course they blamed me, and I shut myself up more and more in my Sanctuery. There I lived with the creatures of my dreams, and forgot for a while that I was only a Sub-Deb, and that Leila's last year's tennis clothes were being fixed over for me.

  But how true what dear Shakspeare says:

  dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain. Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.

  I loved my dreams, but alas, they were not enough. After a tortured hour or two at my desk, living in myself the agonies of my characters, suffering the pangs of the wife with two husbands and both living, struggling in the water with the children, fruit of the first union, dying with number two and blowing my last Bubbles heavenward--after all these emotions, I was done out.

  Jane came in one day and found me prostrate on my couch, with a light of sufering in my eyes.

  "Dearest!" cried Jane, and gliding to my side, fell on her knees.

  "Jane!"

  "What is it? You are ill?"

  I could hardly more than whisper. In a low tone I said:

  "He is dead."

  "Dearest!"

  "Drowned!"

  At first she thought I meant a member of my Familey. But when she understood she looked serious.

  "You are too intence, Bab," she said solemly. "You suffer too much. You are wearing yourself out."

  "There is no other way," I replied in broken tones.

  Jane went to the Mirror and looked at herself. Then she turned to me.

  "Others don't do it."

  "I must work out my own Salvation, Jane," I observed firmly. But she had roused me from my apathy, and I went into Sis's room, returning with a box of candy some one had sent her. "I must feel, Jane, or I cannot write."

  "Pooh! Loads of writers get fat on it. Why don't you try Comedy? It pays well."

  "Oh--MONEY!" I said, in a disgusted tone.

  "Your FORTE, of course, is Love," she said. "Probably that's because you've had so much experience." Owing to certain reasons it is generaly supposed that I have experienced the gentle Passion. But not so, alas! "Bab," Jane said, suddenly, "I have been your friend for a long time. I have never betrayed you. You can trust me with your Life. Why don't you tell me?"

  "Tell you what?"

  "Somthing has happened. I see it in your eyes. No girl who is happy and has not a tradgic story stays at home shut up at a messy desk when everyone is out at the Club playing tennis. Don't talk to me about a Career. A girl's Career is a man and nothing else. And especialy after last winter, Bab. Is--is it the same one?"

  Here I made my fatal error. I should have said at once that there was no one, just as there had been no one last Winter. But she looked so intence, sitting there, and after all, why should I not have an amorus experience? I am not ugly, and can dance well, although inclined to lead because of dansing with other girls all winter at school. So I lay back on my pillow and stared at the ceiling.

  "No. It is not the same man."

  "What is he like? Bab, I'm so excited I can't sit still."

  "It--it hurts to talk about him," I observed faintly.

  Now I intended to let it go at that, and should have, had not Jane kept on asking Questions. Because I had had a good lesson the winter before, and did not intend to decieve again. And this I will say--I realy told Jane Raleigh nothing. She jumped to her own conclusions. And as for her people saying she cannot chum with me any more, I will only say this: If Jane Raleigh smokes she did not learn it from me.

  Well, I had gone as far as I meant to. I was not realy in love with anyone, although I liked Carter Brooks, and would posibly have loved him with all the depth of my Nature if Sis had not kept an eye on me most of the time. However----

  Jane seemed to be expecting somthing, and I tried to think of some way to satisfy her and not make any troubl
e. And then I thought of the Suitcase. So I locked the door and made her promise not to tell, and got the whole thing out of the Toy Closet.

  "Wha--what is it?" asked Jane.

  I said nothing, but opened it all up. The Flask was gone, but the rest was there, and Carter's box too. Jane leaned down and lifted the trowsers. and poked around somewhat. Then she straitened and said:

  "You have run away and got married, Bab."

  "Jane!"

  She looked at me peircingly.

  "Don't lie to me," she said accusingly. "Or else what are you doing with a man's whole Outfit, including his dirty coller? Bab, I just can't bare it."

  Well, I saw that I had gone to far, and was about to tell Jane the truth when I heard the sowing Woman in the hall. I had all I could do to get the things put away, and with Jane looking like death I had to stand there and be fitted for one of Sis's chiffon frocks, with the low neck filled in with net.

  "You must remember, Miss Bab," said the human Pin cushon, "that you are still a very young girl, and not out yet."

  Jane got up off the bed suddenly.

  "I--I guess I'll go, Bab," she said. "I don't feel very well."

  As she went out she stopped in the Doorway and crossed her Heart, meaning that she would die before she would tell anything. But I was not comfortable. It is not a pleasant thought that your best friend considers you married and gone beyond recall, when in truth you are not, or even thinking about it, except in idle moments.

  The seen now changes. Life is nothing but such changes. No sooner do we alight on one Branch, and begin to sip the honey from it, but we are taken up and carried elsewhere, perhaps to the Mountains or to the Sea-shore, and there left to make new friends and find new methods of Enjoyment.

  The flight--or journey--was in itself an anxious time. For on my otherwise clear conscience rested the weight of that strange Suitcase. Fortunately Hannah was so busy that I was left to pack my belongings myself, and thus for a time my gilty secret was safe. I put my things in on top of the masculine articles, not daring to leave any of them in the closet, owing to house-cleaning, which is always done before our return in the fall.