Bab: A Sub-Deb (4 page)

She wanted me to promise, but I would not, although I could not have run anywhere. My legs were entirely numb.

In a half hour at the utmost I knew all would be known, and very likely I would be a homless wanderer on the earth. For I felt that never, never could I return to my Dear Ones, when my terrable actions became known.

Jane came in while I was sipping the tea and she stood off and eyed me with sympathy.

"I don't wonder, Bab!" she said. "The idea of your Familey acting so outragously! And look here" She bent over me and whispered it. "Don't trust Carter too much. He is perfectly in fatuated with Leila, and he will play into the hands of the enemy. BE CAREFUL."

"Loathesome creature!" was my response. "As for trusting him, I trust no one, these days."

"I don't wonder your Faith is gone," she observed. But she was talking with one eye on a mirror.

"Pink makes me pale," she said. "I'll bet the maid has a drawer full of rouge. I'm going to see. How about a touch for you? You look gastly."

"I don't care how I look," I said, recklessly. "I think I'll sprain my ankle and go home. Anyhow I am not allowed to use rouge."

"Not allowed!" she observed. "What has that got to do with it? I don't understand you, Bab; you are totaly changed."

"I am suffering," I said. I was to.

Just then the maid brought me a folded note. Hannah was hanging up my wraps, and did not see it. Jane's eyes fairly bulged.

"I hope you have saved the Cotillion for me," it said. And it was signed. H----!

"Good gracious," Jane said breathlessly."Don't tell me he is here, and that that's from him!"

I had to swallow twice before I could speak. Then I said, solemnly:

"He is here, Jane. He has followed me. I am going to dance the Cotillion with him although I shall probably be disinherited and thrown out into the World, as a result."

I have no recollection whatever of going down the staircase and into the ballroom. Although I am considered rather brave, and once saved one of the smaller girls from drowning, as I need not remind the school, when she was skating on thin ice, I was frightened. I remember that, inside the door, Jane said "Courage!" in a low tence voice, and that I stepped on somebody's foot and said "Certainly" instead of apologizing. The shock of that brought me around somewhat, and I managed to find Mrs. Adams and Elaine, and not disgrace myself. Then somebody at my elbow said:

"All right, Barbara. Everything's fixed."

It was Carter.

"He's waiting in the corner over there," he said. "We'd better go through the formalaty of an introduction. He's positively twittering with excitement."

"Carter" I said desparately. "I want to tell you somthing first. I've got myself in an awful mess. I----"

"Sure you have," he said. "That's why I'm here, to help you out. Now you be calm, and there's no reason why you two can't have the evening of your young lives. I wish ~I~ could fall in Love. It must be bully."

"Carter----!"

"Got his note, didn't you?"

"Yes, I----"

"Here we are," said Carter. "Miss Archibald, I would like to present Mr. Grosvenor."

Somebody bowed in front of me, and then straightened up and looked down at me. IT WAS THE MAN OF THE PICTURE, LITTLE MUSTACHE AND ALL. My mouth went perfectly dry.

It is all very well to talk about Romance and Love, and all that sort of thing. But I have concluded that amorus experiences are not always agreeable. And I have discovered something else. The moment anybody is crazy about me I begin to hate him. It is curious, but I am like that. I only care as long as they, or he, is far away. And the moment I touched H's white kid glove, I knew I loathed him.

"Now go to it, you to," Carter said in cautious tone. "Don't be conspicuous. That's all."

And he left us.

"Suppose we dance this. Shall we?" said H. And the next moment we were gliding off. He danced very well. I will say that. But at the time I was too much occupied with hateing him to care about dancing, or anything. But I was compelled by my pride to see things through. We are a very proud Familey and never show our troubles, though our hearts be torn with anguish.

"Think," he said, when we had got away from the band, "think of our being together like this!"

"It's not so surprizing, is it? We've got to be together if we are dancing."

"Not that. Do you know, I never knew so long a day as this has been. The thought of meeting you--er--again, and all that."

"You needn't rave for my benefit," I said freesingly. "You know perfectly well that you never saw me before."

"Barbara! With your dear little Letter in my breast pocket at this moment!"

"I didn't know men had breast pockets in their evening clothes."

"Oh well, have it your own way. I'm too happy to quarrel," he said. "How well you dance--only, let me lead, won't you? How strange it is to think that we have never danced together before!"

"We must have a talk," I said desparately. "Can't we go somwhere, away from the noise?"

"That would be conspicuous, wouldn't it, under the circumstances? If we are to overcome the Familey objection to me, we'll have to be cautious, Barbara."

"Don't call me Barbara," I snapped. "I know perfectly well what you think of me, and I----"

"I think you are wonderful," he said. "Words fail me when I try to tell you what I am thinking. You've saved the Cotillion for me, haven't you? If not, I'm going to claim it anyhow. IT IS MY RIGHT."

He said it in the most determined manner, as if everything was settled. I felt like a rat in a trap, and Carter, watching from a corner, looked exactly like a cat. If he had taken his hand in its white glove and washed his face with it, I would hardly have been surprized.

The music stopped, and somebody claimed me for the next. Jane came up, too, and cluched my arm.

"You lucky thing!" she said. "He's perfectly handsome. And oh, Bab, he's wild about you. I can see it in his eyes."

"Don't pinch, Jane," I said coldly. "And don't rave. He's an idiot."

She looked at me with her mouth open.

"Well, if you don't want him, pass him on to me," she said, and walked away.

It was too silly, after everything that had happened, to dance the next dance with Willie Graham, who is still in knickerbockers, and a full head shorter than I am. But that's the way with a Party for the school crowd, as I've said before. They ask all ages, from perambulaters up, and of course the little boys all want to dance with the older girls. It is deadly stupid.

But H seemed to be having a good time. He danced a lot with Jane, who is a wreched dancer, with no sense of time whatever. Jane is not pretty, but she has nice eyes, and I am not afraid, second couzin once removed or no second couzin once removed, to say she used them.

Altogether, it was a terrible evening. I danced three dances out of four with knickerbockers, and one with old Mr. Adams, who is fat and rotates his partner at the corners by swinging her on his waistcoat. Carter did not dance at all, and every time I tried to speak to him he was taking a crowd of the little girls to the fruit-punch bowl.

I determined to have things out with H during the Cotillion, and tell him that I would never marry him, that I would Die first. But I was favored a great deal, and when we did have a chance the music was making such a noise that I would have had to shout. Our chairs were next to the band.

But at last we had a minute, and I went out to the verandah, which was closed in with awnings. He had to follow, of course, and I turned and faced him.

"Now" I said, "this has got to stop."

"I don't understand you, Bab."

"You do, perfectly well," I stormed. "I can't stand it. I am going crazy."

"Oh," he said slowly. "I see. I've been dancing too much with the little girl with the eyes! Honestly, Bab, I was only doing it to disarm suspicion. MY EVERY THOUGHT IS OF YOU."

"I mean," I said, as firmly as I could, "that this whole thing has got to stop. I can't stand it."

"Am I to understand," he said solemnly, "that you intend to end everything?"

I felt perfectly wild and helpless.

"After that Letter!" he went on. "After that sweet Letter! You said, you know, that you were mad to see me, and that--it is almost too sacred to repeat, even to YOU--that you would always love me. After that Confession I refuse to agree that all is over. It can NEVER be over."

"I daresay I am losing my mind," I said. "It all sounds perfectly natural. But it doesn't mean anything. There CAN'T be any Harold Valentine; because I made him up. But there is, so there must be. And I am going crazy."

"Look here," he stormed, suddenly quite raving, and throwing out his right hand. It would have been terrably dramatic, only he had a glass of punch in it. "I am not going to be played with. And you are not going to jilt me without a reason. Do you mean to deny everything? Are you going to say, for instance, that I never sent you any violets? Or gave you my Photograph, with an--er--touching inscription on it?" Then, appealingly, "You can't mean to deny that Photograph, Bab!"

And then that lanky wretch of an Eddie Perkins brought me a toy Baloon, and I had to dance, with my heart crushed.

Nevertheless, I ate a fair supper. I felt that I needed Strength. It was quite a grown-up supper, with boullion and creamed chicken and baked ham and sandwitches, among other things. But of course they had to show it was a `kid' party, after all. For instead of coffee we had milk.

Milk! When I was going through a tradgedy. For if it is not a tradgedy to be engaged to a man one never saw before, what is it?

All through the refreshments I could feel that his eyes were on me. And I hated him. It was all well enough for Jane to say he was handsome. She wasn't going to have to marry him. I detest dimples in chins. I always have. And anybody could see that it was his first mustache, and soft, and that he took it round like a mother pushing a new baby in a perambulater. It was sickning.

I left just after supper. He did not see me when I went upstairs, but he had missed me, for when Hannah and I came down, he was at the door, waiting. Hannah was loaded down with silly favors, and lagged behind, which gave him a chance to speak to me. I eyed him coldly and tried to pass him, but I had no chance.

"I'll see you tomorrow, DEAREST," he whispered.

"Not if I can help it," I said, looking straight ahead. Hannah had dropped a stocking--not her own. One of the Xmas favors--and was fumbling about for it.

"You are tired and unerved to-night, Bab. When I have seen your father tomorrow, and talked to him----"

"Don't you dare to see my father."

"----and when he has agreed to what I propose," he went on, without paying any atention to what I had said, "you will be calmer. We can plan things."

Hannah came puffing up then, and he helped us into the motor. He was very careful to see that we were covered with the robes, and he tucked Hannah's feet in. She was awfully flattered. Old Fool! And she babbled about him until I wanted to slap her.

"He's a nice young man. Miss Bab," she said. "That is, if he's the One. And he has nice manners. So considerate. Many a party I've taken your sister to, and never before----"

"I wish you'd shut up, Hannah," I said. "He's a Pig, and I hate him."

She sulked after that, and helped me out of my things at home without a word. When I was in bed, however, and she was hanging up my clothes, she said:

"I don't know what's got into you, Miss Barbara. You are that cross that there's no living with you."

"Oh, go away," I said.

"And what's more," she added, "I don't know but what your mother ought to know about these goingson. You're only a little girl, with all your high and mightiness, and there's going to be no scandal in this Familey if I can help it."

I put the bedclothes over my head, and she went out.

But of course I could not sleep. Sis was not home yet, or mother, and I went into Sis's room and got a novel from her table. It was the story of a woman who had married a man in a hurry, and without really loving him, and when she had been married a year, and hated the very way her husband drank his coffee and cut the ends off his cigars, she found some one she really loved with her Whole Heart. And it was too late. But she wrote him one Letter, the other man, you know, and it caused a lot of trouble. So she said--I remember the very words--

"Half the troubles in the world are caused by Letters. Emotions are changable things"--this was after she had found that she really loved her husband after all, but he had had to shoot himself before she found it out, although not fataly--"but the written word does not change. It remains always, embodying a dead truth and giving it apparent life. No woman should ever put her thoughts on paper."

She got the Letter back, but she had to steal it. And it turned out that the other man had really only wanted her money all the time.

That story was a real ilumination to me. I shall have a great deal of money when I am of age, from my grandmother. I saw it all. It was a trap sure enough. And if I was to get out I would have to have the letter.

IT WAS THE LETTER THAT PUT ME IN HIS POWER.

The next day was Xmas. I got a lot of things, including the necklace, and a mending basket from Sis, with the hope that it would make me tidey, and father had bought me a set of Silver Fox, which mother did not approve of, it being too expencive for a young girl to wear, according to her. I must say that for an hour or two I was happy enough.

But the afternoon was terrable. We keep open house on Xmas afternoon, and father makes a champagne punch, and somebody pours tea, although nobody drinks it, and there are little cakes from the Club, and the house is decorated with poin--(Memo: Not in the Dictionery and I cannot spell it, although not usualy troubled as to spelling.)

At eleven o'clock the mail came in, and mother sorted it over, while father took a gold piece out to the post-man.

There were about a million cards, and mother glanced at the addresses and passed them round. But suddenly she frowned. There was a small parcel, addressed to me.