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.
At one time Tom would have been allowed to take out their Roadster, but unfortunately he had been forbiden to do so, owing to having upset it while taking his Grandmother Gray for an airing, and was not to drive again until she could walk without cruches.
"Won't your people let you take out a car?" he asked. "Every girl ought to know how to drive, in case of war or the CHAUFFEUR leaving----"
"----or taking a Grandmother for an airing!" I said coldly. Because I did not care to be criticized when engaged only a few hours.
However, after we had parted with mutual Protestations, I felt the desire that every engaged person of the Femanine Sex always feels, to apear perfect to the one she is engaged to. I therfore considered whether to ask Smith to teach me to drive one of our cars or to purchace one of my own, and be responsable to no one if muddy, or arrested for speeding, or any other Vicissatude.
On the next day Jane and I looked at automobiles, starting with ones I could not aford so as to clear the air, as Jane said. At last we found one I could aford. Also its lining matched my costume, being tan. It was but six hundred dollars, having been more but turned in by a lady after three hundred miles because she was of the kind that never learns to drive but loses its head during an emergency and forgets how to stop, even though a Human Life be in its path.
The Salesman said that he could tell at a glanse that I was not that sort, being calm in danger and not likly to chase a chicken into a fense corner and murder it, as some do when excited.
Jane and I consulted, for buying a car is a serious matter and not to be done lightly, especialy when one has not consulted one's Familey and knows not where to keep the car when purchaced. It is not like a dog, which I have once or twice kept in a clandestine manner in the Garage, because of flees in the house.
"The trouble is," Jane said, "that if you don't take it some one will, and you will have to get one that costs more."
True indeed, I reflected, with my Check Book in my hand.
Ah, would that some power had whispered in my ear "No. By purchacing the above car you are endangering that which lies near to your Heart and Mind. Be warned in time."
But no sign came. No warning hand was outstretched to put my Check Book back in my pocket book. I wrote the Check and sealed my doom.
How weak is human nature! It is terrable to remember the rapture of that moment, and compare it with my condition now, with no Allowence, with my faith gone and my heart in fragments. And with, alas, another year of school.
As we were going to the country in but a few days, I aranged to leave my new Possesion, merely learning to drive it meanwhile, and having my first lesson the next day.
"Dearest," Jane said as we left. "I am thriled to the depths. The way you do things is wonderfull. You have no fear, none whatever. With your father's Revenge hanging over you, and to secrets, you are calm. Perfectly calm."
"I fear I am reckless, Jane," I said, wistfully. "I am not brave. I am reckless, and also desparate."
"You poor darling!" she said, in a broken voice. "When I think of all you are suffering, and then see your smile, my Heart aches for you."
We then went in and had some ice cream soda, which I paid for, Jane having nothing but a dollar, which she needed for a manacure. I also bought a key ring for Tom, feeling that he should have somthing of mine, a token, in exchange for the Frat pin.
I shall pass over lightly the following week, during which the Familey was packing for the country and all the servants were in a bad humer. In the mornings I took lessons driving the car, which I called the Arab, from the well-known song, which we have on the phonograph;
From the Dessert I come to thee, On my Arab shod with fire.
The instructer had not heard the song, but he said it was a good name, because very likly no one else would think of having it.
"It sounds like a love song," he observed.
"It is," I replied, and gave him a steady glanse. Because, if one realy loves, it is silly to deny it.
"Long ways to a Dessert, isn't it?" he inquired.
"A Dessert may be a place, or it may be a thirsty and emty place in the Soul," I replied. "In my case it is Soul, not terratory."
But I saw that he did not understand.
How few there are who realy understand! How many of us, as I, stand thirsty in the market place, holding out a cup for a kind word or for some one who sees below the surface, and recieve nothing but indiference!
On Tuesday the Grays went to their country house, and Tom came over to say good-bye. Jane had told him he could come, as the Familey would be out.
The thought of the coming seperation, although but for four days, caused me deep greif. Although engaged for only a short time, already I felt how it feels to know that in the vicinaty is some one dearer than Life itself. I felt I must speak to some one, so I observed to Hannah that I was most unhappy, but not to ask me why. I was dressing at the time, and she was hooking m
e up.
"Unhappy!" she said, "with a thousand dollars a year, and naturaly curly hair! You ought to be ashamed, Miss Bab."
"What is money, or even hair?" I asked, "when one's Heart aches?"
"I guess it's your stomache and not your Heart," she said. "With all the candy you eat. If you'd take a dose of magnezia to-night, Miss Bab, with some orange juice to take the taste away, you'd feel better right off."
I fled from my chamber.
I have frequently wondered how it would feel to be going down a staircase, dressed in one's best frock, low neck and no sleaves, to some loved one lurking below, preferably in evening clothes, although not necesarily so. To move statuesqly and yet tenderly, apearing indiferent but inwardly seathing, while below pasionate eyes looked up as I floated down.
However, Tom had not put on evening dress, his clothes being all packed. He was taking one of father's cigars as I entered the library, and he looked very tall and adolesent, although thin. He turned and seeing me, observed:
"Great Scott, Bab! Why the raiment?"
"For you," I said in a low tone.
"Well, it makes a hit with me all right," he said.
And came toward me.
When Jane Raleigh was first kissed by a member of the Other Sex, while in a hammick, she said she hated to be kissed until he did it, and then she liked it. I at the time had considered Jane as flirtatous and as probably not hating it at all. But now I knew she was right, for as I saw Tom coming toward me after laying fatther's cigar on the piano, I felt that I COULD NOT BEAR IT.
And this I must say, here and now. I do not like kissing. Even then, in that first embrase of to, I was worried because I could smell the varnish burning on the Piano. I therfore permited but one salute on the cheek and no more before removing the cigar, which had burned a large spot.
"Look here," he said, in a stern manner, "are we engaged or aren't we? Because I'd like to know."
"If you are to demonstrative, no!" I replied, firmly.
"If you call that a kiss, I don't."
"It sounded like one," I said. "I suppose you know more than I do what is a kiss and what is not. But I'll tell you this--there is no use keeping our amatory affairs to ourselves and then kissing so the Butler thinks the fire whistle is blowing."
The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart Page 167