Bab: A Sub-Deb by Mary Roberts Rinehart - HTML preview

CHAPTER III. HER DIARY: BEING THE DAILY JOURNAL OF THE SUB-DEB

 

JANUARY 1st. I have today received this diary from home, having come back a few days early to make up a French condition.

Weather, clear and cold.

New Year's dinner. Roast chicken (Turkey being very expensive), mashed turnips, sweet potatoes and mince pie.

It is my intention to record in this book the details of my Daily Life, my thoughts which are to sacred for utterance, and my ambitions. Because who is there to whom I can speak them? I am surrounded by those who exist for the mere pleasures of the day, or whose lives are bound up in recitations.

For instance, at dinner today, being mostly faculty and a few girls who live in the far West, the conversation was entirely on buying a phonograph for dancing because the music teacher has the measles and is quarantined in the infirmary. And on Miss Everett's cousin, who has written a play.

When one looks at Miss Everett, one recognizes that no cousin of hers could write a play.

New Year's resolution—to help someone every day. Today helped Mademoiselle to put on her rubbers.

JANUARY 2ND. Today I wrote my French theme, beginning, "Les hommes songent moins a leur ame qua leur corps." Mademoiselle sent for me and objected, saying that it was not a theme for a young girl, and that I must write a new one, on the subject of pears. How is one to develop in this atmosphere?

Some of the girls are coming back. They straggle in, and put the favors they got at cotillions on the dresser, and their holiday gifts, and each one relates some amorous experience while at home. Dear Diary, is there something wrong with me, that love has passed me by? I have had offers of devotion but none that appealed to me, being mostly either too young or not attracting me by physical charm. I am not cold, although frequently accused of it, Beneath my frigid exterior beats a warm heart. I intend to be honest in this diary, and so I admit it. But, except for passing fancies—one being, alas, for a married man—I remain without the divine passion.

What must it be to thrill at the approach of the loved form? To harken to each ring of the telephone bell, in the hope that, if it is not the idolized voice, it is at least a message from it? To waken in the morning and, looking around the familiar room, to muse: "Today I may see him—on the way to the post office, or rushing past in his racing car." And to know that at the same moment HE to is musing: "Today I may see her, as she exercises herself at basket ball, or mounts her horse for a daily canter!"

Although I have no horse. The school does not care for them, considering walking the best exercise.

Have flunked the French again, Mademoiselle not feeling well, and marking off for the smallest thing.

Today's helpful deed—assisted one of the younger girls with her spelling.

JANUARY 4TH. Miss Everett's cousin's play is coming here. The school is to have free tickets, as they are "trying it on the dog." Which means seeing if it is good enough for the large cities.

We have decided, if Everett marks us well in English from now on, to applaud it, but if she is unpleasant, to sit still and show no interest.

JANUARY 5TH, 6TH, 7TH, 8TH. Bad weather, which is depressing to one of my temperament. Also boil on nose.

A few helpful deeds—nothing worth putting down.

JANUARY 9TH. Boil cut.

Again I can face my image in my mirror, and not shrink.

Mademoiselle is sick and no French. MISERICORDE!

Helpful deed—sent Mademoiselle some fudge, but this school does not encourage kindness. Reprimanded for cooking in room. School sympathizes with me. We will go to Miss Everett's cousin's play, but we will damn it with faint praise.

JANUARY 10TH. I have written this date, and now I sit back and regard it. As it is impressed on this white paper, so, Dear Diary, is it written on my soul. To others it may be but the tenth of January. To me it is the day of days. Oh, tenth of January! Oh, Monday. Oh, day of my awakening!

It is now late at night, and around me my schoolmates are sleeping the sleep of the young and heart free. Lights being off, I am writing by the faint luminosity of a candle. Propped up in bed, my mackinaw coat over my 'robe de nuit' for warmth, I sit and dream. And as I dream I still hear in my ears his final words: "My darling. My woman!"

How wonderful to have them said to one night after night, the while being in his embrace, his tender arms around one! I refer to the heroine in the play, to whom he says the above rapturous words.

Coming home from the theater tonight, still dazed with the revelation of what I am capable of, once aroused, I asked Miss Everett if her cousin had said anything about Mr. Egleston being in love with the leading character. She observed:

"No. But he may be. She is very pretty."

"Possibly," I remarked. "But I should like to see her in the morning, when she gets up."

All the girls were perfectly mad about Mr. Egleston, although pretending merely to admire his Art. But I am being honest, as I agreed at the start, and now I know, as I sit here with the soft, although chilly breezes of the night blowing on my hot brow, now I know that this thing that has come to me is Love. Moreover, it is the Love of my Life. He will never know it, but I am his. He is exactly my ideal, strong and tall and passionate. And clever, too. He said some awfully clever things.

I believe that he saw me. He looked in my direction. But what does it matter? I am small, insignificant. He probably thinks me a mere child, although seventeen.

What matters, oh Diary, is that I am at last in Love. It is hopeless. Just now, when I had written that word, I buried my face in my hands. There is no hope. None. I shall never see him again. He passed out of my life on the 11:45 train. But I love him. MON DIEU, how I love him!

JANUARY 11TH. We are going home. WE ARE GOING HOME. WE ARE GOING HOME. WE ARE GOING HOME!

Mademoiselle has the measles.

JANUARY 13TH. The family managed to restrain its ecstasy on seeing me today. The house is full of people, as they are having a dinner-dance tonight. Sis had moved into my room, to let one of the visitors have hers, and she acted in a very unfilial manner when she came home and found me in it.

"Well!" she said. "Expelled at last?"

"Not at all," I replied in a lofty manner. "I am here through no fault of my own. And I'd thank you to have Hannah take your clothes off my bed."

She gave me a bitter glance.

"I never knew it to fail!" she said. "Just as everything is fixed, and we're recovering from you're being here for the holidays, you come back and stir up a lot of trouble. What brought you, anyhow?"

"Measles."

She snatched up her ball gown.

"Very well," she said. "I'll see that you're quarantined, Miss Barbara, all right. And If you think you're going to slip downstairs tonight after dinner and WORM yourself into this party, I'll show you."

She flounced out, and shortly afterward mother took a minute from the florist, and came upstairs.

"I do hope you are not going to be troublesome, Barbara," she said. "You are too young to understand, but I want everything to go well tonight, and Leila ought not to be worried."

"Can't I dance a little?"

"You can sit on the stairs and watch." She looked fidgety. "I—I'll send up a nice dinner, and you can put on your dark blue, with a fresh collar, and—it ought to satisfy you, Barbara, that you are at home and possibly have brought the measles with you, without making a lot of fuss. When you come out——"

"Oh, very well," I murmured, in a resigned tone. "I don't care enough about it to want to dance with a lot of souses anyhow."

"Barbara!" said mother.

"I suppose you have some one on the string for her," I said, with the abandon of my thwarted hopes. "Well, I hope she gets him. Because if not, I daresay I shall be kept in the cradle for years to come."

"You will come out when you reach a proper age," she said, "if your impertinence does not kill me off before my time."

Dear Diary, I am fond of my mother, and I felt repentant and stricken.

So I became more agreeable, although feeling all the time that she does not and never will understand my temperament. I said:

"I don't care about society, and you know it, mother. If you'll keep Leila out of this room, which isn't much but is my castle while here, I'll probably go to bed early."

"Barbara, sometimes I think you have no affection for your sister."

I had agreed to honesty January first, so I replied.

"I have, of course, mother. But I am fonder of her while at school than at home. And I should be a better sister if not condemned to her old things, including hats which do not suit my type."

Mother moved over majestically to the door and shut it. Then she came and stood over me.

"I've come to the conclusion, Barbara," she said, "to appeal to your better nature. Do you wish Leila to be married and happy?"

"I've just said, mother——"

"Because a very interesting thing is happening," said mother, trying to look playful. "I—a chance any girl would jump at."

So here I sit, Dear Diary, while there are sounds of revelry below, and Sis jumps at her chance, which is the Honorable Page Beresford, who is an Englishman visiting here because he has a weak heart and can't fight. And father is away on business, and I am all alone.

I have been looking for a rash, but no luck.

Ah me, how the strains of the orchestra recall that magic night in the theater when Adrian Egleston looked down into my eyes and although ostensibly to an actress, said to my beating heart: "My Darling! My Woman!"

3 A. M. I wonder if I can control my hands to write.

In mother's room across the hall I can hear furious voices, and I know that Leila is begging to have me sent to Switzerland. Let her beg. Switzerland is not far from England, and in England——

Here I pause to reflect a moment. How is this thing possible? Can I love members of the other sex? And if such is the case, how can I go on with my life? Better far to end it now, than to perchance marry one, and find the other still in my heart. The terrible thought has come to me that I am fickle.

Fickle or polygamous—which?

Dear Diary, I have not been a good girl. My New Year's Resolutions have gone to airy nothing.

The way they went was this: I had settled down to a quiet evening, spent with his beloved picture which I had clipped from a newspaper. (Adrian's. I had not as yet met the other.) And, as I sat in my chamber, I grew more and more desolate. I love life, although pessimistic at times. And it seemed hard that I should be there, in exile, while my sister, only 20 months older, was jumping at her chance below.

At last I decided to try on one of Sis's frocks and see how I looked in it. I thought, if it looked all right, I might hang over the stairs and see what I then scornfully termed "His Nibs." Never again shall I so call him.

I got an evening gown from Sis's closet, and it fitted me quite well, although tight at the waste for me, owing to basketball. It was also too low, so that when I had got it all hooked about four inches of my lingerie showed. As it had been hard as anything to hook, I was obliged to take the scissors and cut off the said lingerie. The result was good, although very decollete. I have no bones in my neck, or practically so.

And now came my moment of temptation. How easy to put my hair up on my head, and then, by the servant's staircase, make my way to the scene below!

I, however, considered that I looked pale, although mature. I looked at least nineteen. So I went into Sis's room, which was full of evening wraps but empty, and put on a touch of rouge. With that and my eyebrows blackened, I would not have known myself, had I not been certain it was I and no other.

I then made my way down the back stairs.

Ah me, Dear Diary, was that but a few hours ago? Is it but a short time since Mr. Beresford was sitting at my feet, thinking me a debutante, and staring soulfully into my very heart? Is it but a matter of minutes since Leila found us there, and in a manner which revealed the true feeling she has for me, ordered me to go upstairs and take off Maddie Mackenzie's gown?

(Yes, it was not Leila's after all. I had forgotten that Maddie had taken her room. And except for pulling it somewhat at the waist, I am sure I did not hurt the old thing.)

I shall now go to bed and dream. Of which one I know not. My heart is full. Romance has come at last into my dull and dreary life. Below, the revelers have gone. The flowers hang their herbaceous heads. The music has flowed away into the river of the past. I am alone with my Heart.

JANUARY 14TH. How complicated my life grows, Dear Diary! How full and yet how incomplete! How everything begins and nothing ends!

HE is in town.

I discovered it at breakfast. I knew I was in for it, and I got down early, counting on mother breakfasting in bed. I would have felt better if father had been at home, because he understands somewhat the way they keep me down. But he was away about an order for shells (not sea; war), and I was to bare my chiding alone. I had eaten my fruit and cereal, and was about to begin on sausage, when mother came in, having risen early from her slumbers to take the decorations to the hospital.

"So here you are, wretched child!" she said, giving me one of her coldest looks. "Barbara, I wonder if you ever think whither you are tending."

I ate a sausage.

What, Dear Diary, was there to say?

"To disobey!" she went on. "To force yourself on the attention of Mr. Beresford, in a borrowed dress, with your eyelashes blackened and your face painted——"

"I should think, mother," I observed, "that if he wants to marry into this family, and is not merely being dragged into it, that he ought to see the worst at the start." She glared, without speaking. "You know," I continued, "it would be a dreadful thing to have the ceremony performed and everything too late to back out, and then have ME sprung on him. It wouldn't be honest, would it?"

"Barbara!" she said in a terrible tone. "First disobedience, and now sarcasm. If your father was only here! I feel so alone and helpless."

Her tone cut me to the heart. After all she was my own mother, or at least maintained so, in spite of numerous questions engendered by our lack of resemblance, moral as well as physical. But I did not offer to embarrass her, as she was at that moment poring out her tea. I hid my misery behind the morning paper, and there I beheld the fated vision. Had I felt any doubt as to the state of my affections it was settled then. My heart leaped in my bosom. My face suffused. My hands trembled so that a piece of sausage slipped from my fork. His picture looked out at me with that well remembered gaze from the depths of the morning paper!

Oh, Adrian, Adrian!

Here in the same city as I, looking out over perchance the same newspaper to perchance the same sun, wondering—ah, what was he wondering?

I was not even then, in that first rapture, foolish about him. I knew that to him I was probably but a tender memory. I knew, too, that he was but human and probably very conceited. On the other hand, I pride myself on being a good judge of character, and he carried nobility in every lineament. Even the obliteration of one eye by the printer could only hamper but not destroy his dear face.

"Barbara," mother said sharply. "I am speaking. Are you being sulky?"

"Pardon me, mother," I said in my gentlest tones. "I was but dreaming." And as she made no reply, but rang the bell viciously, I went on, pursuing my line of thought. "Mother, were you ever in love?"

"Love! What sort of love?"

I sat up and stared at her.

"Is there more than one sort?" I demanded.

"There is a very silly, schoolgirl love," she said, eying me, "that people outgrow and blush to look back on."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you blush to look back on it?"

Mother rose and made a sweeping gesture with her right arm.

"I wash my hands of you!" she said. "You are impertinent and indelicate. At your age I was an innocent child, not troubling with things that did not concern me. As for love, I had never heard of it until I came out."

"Life must have burst on you like an explosion," I observed. "I suppose you thought that babies——"

"Silence!" mother shrieked. And seeing that she persisted in ignoring the real things of life while in my presence, I went out, clutching the precious paper to my heart.

JANUARY 15TH. I am alone in my boudoir (which is really the old schoolroom, and used now for a sewing room).

My very soul is sick, oh Diary. How can I face the truth? How write it out for my eyes to see? But I must. For something must be done! The play is failing.

The way I discovered it was this. Yesterday, being short of money, I sold my amethyst pin to Jane, one of the housemaids, for two dollars, throwing in a lace collar when she seemed doubtful, as I had a special purpose for using funds. Had father been at home I could have touched him, but mother is different.

I then went out to buy a frame for his picture, which I had repaired by drawing in the other eye, although lacking the fire and passionate look of the original. At the shop I was compelled to show it, to buy a frame to fit. The clerk was almost overpowered.

"Do you know him?" she asked, in a low and throbbing tone.

"Not intimately," I replied.

"Don't you love the Play?" she said. "I'm crazy about it. I've been back three times. Parts of it I know off by heart. He's very handsome. That picture don't do him justice."

I gave her a searching glance. Was it possible that, without any acquaintance with him whatever, she had fallen in love with him? It was indeed. She showed it in every line of her silly face.

I drew myself up haughtily. "I should think it would be very expensive, going so often," I said, in a cool tone.

"Not so very. You see, the play is a failure, and they give us girls tickets to dress the house. Fill it up, you know. Half the girls in the store are crazy about Mr. Egleston."

My world shuddered about me. What—fail! That beautiful play, ending "My darling, my woman"? It could not be. Fate would not be cruel. Was there no appreciation of the best in art? Was it indeed true, as Miss Everett has complained, although not in these exact words, that the Theater was only supported now by chorus girls' legs, dancing about in utter abandon?

With an expression of despair on my features, I left the store, carrying the frame under my arm.

One thing is certain. I must see the play again, and judge it with a critical eye. IF IT IS WORTH SAVING, IT MUST BE SAVED.

JANUARY 16TH. Is it only a day since I saw you, Dear Diary? Can so much have happened in the single lapse of a few hours? I look in my mirror, and I look much as before, only with perhaps a touch of pallor. Who would not be pale?

I have seen HIM again, and there is no longer any doubt in my heart. Page Beresford is attractive, and if it were not for circumstances as they are I would not answer for the consequences. But things ARE as they are. There is no changing that. And I have read my own heart.

I am not fickle. On the contrary, I am true as steal.

I have put his picture under my mattress, and have given Jane my gold cuff pins to say nothing when she makes my bed. And now, with the house full of people downstairs acting in a flippant and noisy manner, I shall record how it all happened.

My financial condition was not improved this morning, father having not returned. But I knew that I must see the play, as mentioned above, even if it became necessary to borrow from Hannah. At last, seeing no other way, I tried this, but failed.

"What for?" she said, in a suspicious way.

"I need it terribly, Hannah," I said.

"You'd ought to get it from your mother, then, Miss Barbara. The last time I gave you some you paid it back in postage stamps, and I haven't written a letter since. They're all stuck together now, and a total loss."

"Very well," I said, frigidly. "But the next time you break anything——"

"How much do you want?" she asked.

I took a quick look at her, and I saw at once that she had decided to lend it to me and then run and tell mother, beginning, "I think you'd ought to know, Mrs. Archibald——"

"Nothing doing, Hannah," I said, in a most dignified manner. "But I think you are an old clam, and I don't mind saying so."

I was now thrown on my own resources, and very bitter. I seemed to have no friends, at a time when I needed them most, when I was, as one may say, "standing with reluctant feet, where the brook and river meet."

Tonight I am no longer sick of life, as I was then. My throws of anguish have departed. But I was then utterly reckless, and even considered running away and going on the stage myself.

I have long desired a career for myself, anyhow. I have a good mind, and learn easily, and I am not a parasite. The idea of being such has always been repugnant to me, while the idea of a few dollars at a time doled out to one of independent mind is galling. And how is one to remember what one has done with one's allowance, when it is mostly eaten up by small loans, carfare, stamps, church collection, rose water and glycerin, and other mild cosmetics, and the additional food necessary when one is still growing?

To resume, Dear Diary; having utterly failed with Hannah, and having shortly after met Sis on the stairs, I said to her, in a sisterly tone, intimate rather than fond:

"I daresay you can lend me five dollars for a day or so."

"I daresay I can. But I won't," was her cruel reply.

"Oh, very well," I said briefly. But I could not refrain from making a grimace at her back, and she saw me in a mirror.

"When I think," she said heartlessly, "that that wretched school may be closed for weeks, I could scream."

"Well, scream!" I replied. "You'll scream harder if I've brought the measles home on me. And if you're laid up, you can say good-bye to the dishonorable. You've got him tied, maybe," I remarked, "but not thrown as yet."

(A remark I had learned from one of the girls, Trudie Mills, who comes from Montana.)

I was therefore compelled to dispose of my silver napkin ring from school. Jane was bought up, she said, and I sold it to the cook for fifty cents and half a mince pie although baked with our own materials.

All my fate, therefore, hung on a paltry fifty cents.

I was torn with anxiety. Was it enough? Could I, for fifty cents, steal away from the sordid cares of life, and lose myself in obliviousness, gazing only it his dear face, listening to his dear and softly modulated voice, and wondering if, as his eyes swept the audience, they might perchance light on me and brighten with a momentary gleam in their unfathomable depths? Only this and nothing more, was my expectation.

How different was the reality!

Having ascertained that there was a matinee, I departed at an early hour after luncheon, wearing my blue velvet with my fox furs. White gloves and white topped shoes completed my outfit, and, my own chapeau showing the effect of a rainstorm on the way home from church while away at school, I took a chance on one of Sis's, a perfectly maddening one of rose-colored velvet. As the pink made me look pale, I added a touch of rouge.

I looked fully out, and indeed almost second season. I have a way of assuming a serious and mature manner, so that I am frequently taken for older than I really am. Then, taking a few roses left from the decorations, and thrusting them carelessly into the belt of my coat, I went out the back door, as Sis was getting ready for some girls to play bridge, in the front of the house.

Had I felt any grief at deceiving my family, the bridge party would have knocked them. For, as usual, I had not been asked, although playing a good game myself, and having on more than one occasion won most of the money in the Upper House at school.

I was early at the theater. No one was there, and women were going around taking covers off the seats. My fifty cents gave me a good seat, from which I opined, alas, that the shop girl had been right and business was rotten. But at last, after hours of waiting, the faint tuning of musical instruments was heard.

From that time I lived in a daze. I have never before felt so strange. I have known and respected the other sex, and indeed once or twice been kissed by it. But I had remained cold. My pulses had never fluttered. I was always concerned only with the fear that others had overseen and would perhaps tell. But now—I did not care who would see, if only Adrian would put his arms about me. Divine shamelessness! Brave Rapture! For if one who he could not possibly love, being so close to her in her make-up, if one who was indeed employed to be made love to, could submit in public to his embraces, why should not I, who would have died for him?

These were my thoughts as the play went on. The hours flew on joyous feet. When Adrian came to the footlights and looking apparently square at me, declaimed: "The world owes me a living. I will have it," I almost swooned. His clothes were worn. He looked hungry and gaunt. But how true that

"Rags are royal raiment, when worn for virtue's sake."

(I shall stop here and go down to the pantry. I could eat no dinner, being filled with emotion. But I must keep strong if I am to help Adrian in his trouble. The mince pie was excellent, but after all pastry does not take the place of solid food.)

LATER: I shall now go on with my recital. As the theater was almost empty, at the end of Act One I put on the pink hat and left it on as though absent-minded. There was no one behind me. And, although during act one I had thought that he perhaps felt my presence, he had not once looked directly at me.

But the hat captured his errant gaze, as one may say. And, after capture, it remained on my face, so much so that I flushed and a woman sitting near with a very plain girl in a skunk collar, observed:

"Really, it is outrageous."

Now came a moment which I thrill even to recollect. For Adrian plucked a pink rose from a vase—he was in the millionaire's house, and was starving in the midst of luxury—and held it to his lips.

The rose, not the house, of course. Looking over it, he smiled down at me.

LATER: It is midnight. I cannot sleep. Perchance he too, is lying awake. I am sitting at the window in my robe de nuit. Below, mother and Sis have just come in, and Smith has slammed the door of the car and gone back to the garage. How puny is the life my family leads! Nothing but eating and playing, with no higher thoughts.

A man has just gone by. For a moment I thought I recognized the footstep. But no, it was but the night watchman.

JANUARY 17TH. Father still away. No money, as mother absolutely refuses on account of Maddie Mackenzie's gown, which she had to send away to be repaired.

JANUARY 18TH. Father still away. The Hon. sent Sis a huge bunch of orchids today. She refused me even one. She is always tight with flowers and candy.

JANUARY 19TH. The paper says that Adrian's play is going to close the end of next week. No business. How can I endure to know that he is suffering, and that I cannot help, even to the extent of buying one ticket? Matinee today, and no money. Father still away.

I have tried to do a kind deed today, feeling that perhaps it would soften mother's heart and she would advance my allowance. I offered to manicure her nails for her, but she refused, saying that as Hannah had done it for many years, she guessed she could manage now.

JANUARY 20TH. Today I did a desperate thing, dear Diary.

"The desperate is the wisest course." Butler.

It is Sunday. I went to church, and thought things over. What a wonderful thing it would be if I could save the play! Why should I feel that my sex is a handicap?

The rector preached on "The Opportunities of Women." The Sermon gave me courage to go on. When he said, "Women today step in where men are afraid to tread, and bring success out of failure," I felt that it was meant for me.

Had no money for the plate, and mother attempted to smuggle a half dollar to me. I refused, however, as if I cannot give my own money to the heathen, I will give none. Mother turned pale, and the man with the plate gave me a black look. What can he know of my reasons?

Beresford lunched with us, and as I discouraged him entirely, he was very attentive to Sis. Mother is planing a big wedding, and I found Sis in the store room yesterday looking up mother's wedding veil.

No old stuff for me.

I guess Beresford is trying to forget that he kissed my hand the other night, for he called me "Little Miss Barbara" today, meaning little in the sense of young. I gave him a stern glance.

"I am not any littler than the other night," I observed.

"That was merely an affectionate diminutive," he said, looking uncomfortable.

"If you don't mind," I said coldly, "you might do as you have heretofore—reserve your affectionate advances until we are alone."

"Barbara!" mother said. And began quickly to talk about a Lady Something or other we'd met on a train in Switzerland. Because—they can talk until they are black in the face, dear Diary, but it is true we do not know any of the British Nobility, except the aforementioned and the man who comes once a year with flavoring extracts, who says he is the third son of a baronet.

Every one being out this afternoon, I suddenly had an inspiration, and sent for Carter Brooks. I then put my hair up and put on my blue silk, because while I do not believe in woman using her feminine charm when talking business, I do believe that she should look her best under any and all circumstances.

He was rather su