We then sat down, and I gave him the key ring, which he said was a dandy. I then told him about getting Sis married and out of the way. He thought it was a good idea.
"You'll never have a chance as long as she's around," he observed, smoking father's cigar at intervals. "They're afraid of you, and that's flat. It's your Eyes. That's what got me, anyhow." He blue a smoke ring and sat back with his legs crossed. "Funny, isn't it?" he said. "Here we are, snug as weavils in a cotton thing-un-a-gig, and only a week ago there was nothing between us but to brick walls. Hot in here, don't you think?"
"Only a week!" I said. "Tom, I've somthing to tell you. That is the nice part of being engaged--to tell things that one would otherwise bury in one's own Bosom. I shall have no secrets from you from henceforward."
So I told him about the car and how we could drive together in it, and no one would know it was mine, although I would tell the Familey later on, when to late to return it. He said little, but looked at me and kept on smoking, and was not as excited as I had expected, although interested.
But in the midst of my Narative he rose quickly and observed:
"Bab, I'm poizoned!"
I then perceived that he was pale and hagard. I rose to my feet, and thinking it might be the cigar, I asked him if he would care for a peice of chocolate cake to take the taste away. But to my greif he refused very snappishly and without a Farewell slamed out of the house, leaving his hat and so forth in the hall.
A bitter night ensued. For I shall admit that terrable thoughts filled my mind, although how perpetrated I knew not. Would those who loved me stoop to such depths as to poizon my afianced? And if so, whom?
The very thought was sickning.
I told Jane the next morning, but she pretended to beleive that the cigar had been to strong for him, and that I should remember that, although very good-hearted, he was a mere child. But, if poizon, she suggested Hannah.
That day, although unerved from anxiety, I took the Arab out alone, having only Jane with me. Except that once I got into reverce instead of low geer, and broke a lamp on a Gentleman behind, I had little or no trouble, although having one or to narrow escapes owing to putting my foot on the gas throttle instead of the brake.
It was when being backed off the pavment by to Policemen and a man from a milk wagon, after one of the aforsaid mistakes, that I first saw he who was to bring such wrechedness to me.
Jane had got out to see how much milk we had spilt--we had struck the milk wagon--and I was getting out my check book, because the man was very nasty and insisted on having my name, when I first saw him. He had stopped and was looking at the gutter, which was full of milk. Then he looked at me.
"How much damages does he want?" he said in a respectful tone.
"Twenty dollars," I replied, not considering it flirting to merely reply in this manner.
The Stranger then walked over to the milkman and said:
"A very little spilt milk goes a long way. Five dollars is plenty for that and you know it."
"How about me getting a stitch in my chin, and having to pay for that?"
I beleive I have not said that the milk man was cut in the chin by a piece of a bottle.
"Ten, then," said my friend in need.
When it was all over, and I had given two dollars to the old woman who had been in the milk wagon and was knocked out although only bruized, I went on, thinking no more about the Stranger, and almost running into my father, who did not see me.
That afternoon I realized that I must face the state of afairs, and I added up the Checks I had made out. Ye gods! Of all my Money there now remaind for the ensuing year but two hundred and twenty nine dollars and forty five cents.
I now realized that I had been extravagant, having spent so much in six days. Although I did not regard the Arab as such, because of saving car fare and half soleing shoes. Nor the TROUSEAU, as one must have clothing. But facial masage and manacures and candy et cetera I felt had been wastefull.
At dinner that night mother said:
"Bab, you must get yourself some thin frocks. You have absolutely nothing. And Hannah says you have bought nothing. After all a thousand dollars is a thousand dollars. You can have what you ought to have. Don't be to saving."
"I have not the interest in clothes I once had, mother" I replied. "If Leila will give me her old things I will use them."
"Bab!" mother said, with a peircing glanse, "go upstairs and bring down your Check Book."
I turned pale with fright, but father said:
"No, my dear. Suppose we let this thing work itself out. It is Barbara's money, and she must learn."
That night, when I was in bed and trying to divide $229.45 by 12 months, father came in and sat down on the bed.
"There doesn't happen to be anything you want to say to me, I suppose, Bab?" he inquired in a gentle tone.
Although not a weeping person, shedding but few tears even when punished in early years, his kind tone touched my Heart, and made me lachrymoze. Such must always be the feelings of those who decieve.
But, although bent, I was not yet broken. I therfore wept on in silence while father patted my back.
"Because," he said, "while I am willing to wait until you are ready, when things begin to get to thick I want you to know that I'm around, the same as usual."
He kissed the back of my neck, which was all that was visable, and went to the door. From there he said, in a low tone:
"And by the way, Bab, I think, since you bought me the Tie, it would be rather nice to get your mother somthing also. How about it? Violets, you know, or--or somthing."
Ye gods! Violets at five dollars a hundred. But I agreed. I then sat up in bed and said:
"Father, what would you say if you knew some one was decieving you?"
"Well," he said, "I am an old Bird and hard to decieve. A good many people think they can do it, however, and now and then some one gets away with it."
I felt softened and repentent. Had he but patted me once more, I would have told all. But he was looking for a match for his cigar, and the opportunaty passed.
"Well," he said, "close up that active brain of yours for the night, Bab, and here are to `don'ts' to sleep on. Don't break your neck in--in any way. You're a reckless young Lady. And don't elope with the first moony young idiot who wants to hold your hand. There will quite likly be others."
Others! How heartless! How cynical! Were even those I love best to worldly to understand a monogamous Nature?
When he had gone out, I rose to hide my Check Book in the crown of an old hat, away from Hannah. Then I went to the window and glansed out. There was no moon, but the stars were there as usual, over the roof of that emty domacile next door, whence all life had fled to the neighborhood of the Country Club.
But a strange thing caught my eye and transfixed it. There on the street, looking up at our house, now in the first throes of sleep, was the Stranger I had seen that afternoon when I had upset the milk wagon against the Park fense.
III
I shall now remove the Familey to the country, which is easier on paper than in the flesh, owing to having to take china, silver, bedding and edables. Also porch furnature and so on.
Sis acted very queer while we were preparing. She sat in her room and knited, and was not at home to Callers, although there were not many owing to summer and every one away. When she would let me in, which was not often, as she said I made her head ache, I tried to turn her thoughts to marriage or to nursing at the War, which was for her own good, since she is of the kind who would never be happy leading a simple life, but should be married.
But alas for all my hopes. She said, on the day before we left, while packing her jewel box:
"You might just as well give up trying to get rid of me, Barbara. Because I do not intend to marry any one."
"Very well, Leila," I said, in a cold tone. "Of course it matters not to me, because I can be kept in school untill I am thirty, and never come out or have a good time, and no
one will care. But when you are an old woman and have not employed your natural function of having children to suport you in Age, don't say I did not warn you."
"Oh, you'll come out all right," she said, in a brutal manner. "You'll come out like a sky rocket. You'd be as impossable to supress as a boil."
Carter Brooks came around that afternoon and we played marbels in the drawing room with moth balls, as the rug was up. It was while sitting on the floor eating some candy he had brought that I told him that there was no use hanging around, as Leila was not going to marry. He took it bravely, and said that he saw nothing to do but to wait for some of the younger crowd to grow up, as the older ones had all refused him.
"By the way," he said. "I thought I saw you running a car the other day. You were chasing a fox terier when I saw you, but I beleive the dog escaped."
I looked at him and I saw that, although smiling, he was one who could be trusted, even to the Grave.
"Carter," I said. "It was I, although when you saw me I know not, as dogs are always getting in the way."
I then told him about the pony cart, and the Allowence, and saving car fare. Also that I felt that I should have some pleasure, even if SUB ROSA, as the expression is. But I told him also that I disliked decieving my dear parents, who had raised me from infancy and through meazles, whooping cough and shingles.
"Do you mean to say," he said in an astounded voice, "that you have BOUGHT that car?"
"I have. And paid for it."
Being surprized he put a moth ball into his mouth, instead of a gum drop.
"Well," he said, "you'll have to tell them. You can't hide it in a closet, you know, or under the bed."
"And let them take it away? Never."
My tone was firm, and he saw that I meant it, especialy when I explained that there would be nothing to do in the country, as mother and Sis would play golf all day, and I was not allowed at the Club, and that the Devil finds work for idle hands.
"But where in the name of good sense are you going to keep it?" he inquired, in a wild tone.
"I have been thinking about that," I said. "I may have to buy a portible Garage and have it set up somwhere."
"Look here," he said, "you give me a little time on this, will you? I'm not naturaly a quick thinker, and somhow my brain won't take it all in just yet. I suppose there's no use telling you not to worry, because you are not the worrying kind."
How little he knew of me, after years of calls and conversation!
Just before he left he said: "Bab, just a word of advise for you. Pick your Husband, when the time comes, with care. He ought to have the solidaty of an elephant and the mental agilaty of a flee. But no imagination, or he'll die a lunatic."
The next day he telephoned and said that he had found a place for the car in the country, a shed on the Adams' place, which was emty, as the Adams's were at Lakewood. So that was fixed.
Now my plan about the car was this: Not to go on indefanitely decieving my parents, but to learn to drive the car as an expert. Then, when they were about to say that I could not have one as I would kill myself in the first few hours, to say:
"You wrong me. I have bought a car, and driven it for----days, and have killed no one, or injured any one beyond bruizes and one stitch."
I would then disapear down the drive, returning shortly in the Arab, which, having been used----days, could not be returned.
All would have gone as aranged had it not been for the fatal question of Money.
Owing to having run over some broken milk bottles on the ocasion I have spoken of, I was obliged to buy a new tire at thirty-five dollars. I also had a bill of eleven dollars for gasoline, and a fine of ten dollars for speeding, which I paid at once for fear of a Notice being sent home.
This took fifty-six dollars more, and left me but $183.45 for the rest of the year, $15.28 a month to dress on and pay all expences. To add to my troubles mother suddenly became very fussy about my clothing and insisted that I purchace a new suit, hat and so on, which cost one hundred dollars and left me on the verge of penury.
Is it surprizing that, becoming desparate, I seized at any straw, however intangable?
I paid a man five dollars to take the Arab to the country and put it in the aforsaid shed, afterwards hiding the key under a stone outside. But, although needing relaxation and pleasure during those sad days, I did not at first take it out, as I felt that another tire would ruin me.
Besides, they had the Pony Cart brought every day, and I had to take it out, pretending enjoyment I could not feel, since acustomed to forty miles an hour and even more at times.
I at first invited Tom to drive with me in the Cart, thinking that merely to be together would be pleasure enough. But at last I was compeled to face the truth. Although protesting devotion until death, Tom did not care for the Cart, considering it juvenile for a college man, and also to small for his legs.
But at last he aranged a plan, which was to take the Cart as far as the shed, leave it there, and take out the car. This we did frequently, and I taught Tom how to drive it.
I am not one to cry over spilt milk. But I am one to confess when I have made a mistake. I do not beleive in laying the blame on Providence when it belongs to the Other Sex, either.
It was on going down to the shed one morning and finding a lamp gone and another tire hanging in tatters that I learned the Truth. He who should have guarded my interests with his very Life, including finances, had been taking the Arab out in the evenings when I was confined to the bosom of my Familey, and using up gasoline et cetera besides riding with whom I knew not.
Eighty-three dollars and 45 cents less thirty-five dollars for a tire and a bill for gasoline in the village of eight dollars left me, for the balance of the year, but $40.45 or $3.37 a month! And still a lamp missing.
It was terrable.
I sat on the running board and would have shed tears had I not been to angry.
It was while sitting thus, and deciding to return the Frat pin as costing to much in gasoline and patients, that I percieved Tom coming down the road. His hand was tied up in a bandige, and his whole apearance was of one who wishes to be forgiven.
Why, oh, why, must women of my Sex do all the forgiving?
He stood in the doorway so I could see the bandige and would be sorry for him. But I apeared not to notice him.
"Well?" he said.
I was silent.
"Now look here," he went on, "I'm darned lucky to be here and not dead, young lady. And if you are going to make a fuss, I'm going away and join the Ambulance in France."
"They'd better not let you drive a car if they care anything about it," I said, coldly.
"That's it! Go to it! Give me the Devil, of course. Why should you care that I have a broken arm, or almost?"
"Well," I said, in a cutting manner, "broken bones mend themselves and do not have to be taken to a Garage, where they charge by the hour and loaf most of the time. May I ask, if not to much trouble to inform me, whom you took out in my car last night? Because I'd like to send her your pin. I'd go on wearing it, but it's to expencive."
"Oh, very well," he said. He then brought out my key ring, although unable to take the keys off because of having but one hand. "If you're as touchy as all that, and don't care for the real story, I'm through. That's all."
I then began to feel remorceful. I am of a forgiving Nature naturaly and could not forget that but yesterday he had been tender and loving, and had let me drive almost half the time. I therfore said:
"If you can explain I will listen. But be breif. I am in no mood for words."
Well, the long and short of it was that I was wrong, and should not have jumped to conclusions. Because the Gray's house had been robbed the night before, taking all the silver and Mr. Gray's dress suit, as well as shirts and so on, and as their CHAUFFEUR had taken one of the maids out INCOGNITO and gone over a bank, returning at seven A. M. in a hired hack, there was no way to follow the theif. So Tom had taken my car and would ha
ve caught him, having found Mr. Gray's trowsers on a fense, although torn, but that he ran into a tree because of going very fast and skiding.
He would have gone through the wind-shield, but that it was down.
I was by that time mollafied and sorry I had been so angry, especialy as Tom said:
"Father ofered a hundred dollars reward for his capture, and as you have been adviseing me to save money, I went after the hundred."
At this thought, that my FIANCEE had endangered his hand and the rest of his person in order to acquire money for our ultamate marriage, my anger died.
I therfore submitted to an embrase, and washed the car, which was covered with mud. as Tom had but one hand and that holding a cigarette.
Now and then, Dear Reader, when not to much worried with finances, I look back and recall those halycon days when Love had its place in my life, filling it to the exclusion of even suficient food, and rendering me immune to the questions of my Familey, who wanted to know how I spent my time.
Oh, magic eyes of afection, which see the beloved object as containing all the virtues, including strong features and intellagence! Oh, dear dead Dreams, when I saw myself going down the church isle in white satin and Dutchess lace! O Tempora O Mores! Farewell.
What would have happened, I wonder, if father had not discharged Smith that night for carrying passengers to the Club from the railway station in our car, charging them fifty cents each and scraching the varnish with golf clubs?
I know not.
But it gave me the idea that ultamately ruined my dearest hopes. This was it. If Smith could get fifty cents each for carrying passengers, why not I? I was unknown to most, having been expatriated at School for several years. But also there were to stations, one which the summer people used, and one which was used by the so-called locals.
I was desparate. Money I must have, whether honestly or not, for mother had bought me some more things and sent me the bill.
"Because you will not do it yourself," she said. "And I cannot have it said that we neglect you, Barbara."
The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart Page 168