Bab: A Sub-Deb (8 page)

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.

"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 that, 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.