"You think you are in love with some drivelling young Fool. I"m not blind, or an idot. And I won"t have it."
"I have not said that there is anyone, have I?" I said in a gentle voice. "But if there was, just what would you propose to do, mother?"
"If you were three years younger I"d propose to spank you." Then I think she saw that she was taking the wrong method, for she changed her Tactics. "It"s the fault of that Silly School," she said. (Note: These are my mother"s words, not mine.) "They are hotbeds of sickley sentamentality. They----"
And just then the violets came, addressed to me. Mother opened them herself, her mouth set. "My love is like a white, white rose," she said.
"Barbara, do you know who sent these?"
"Yes, mother," I said meekly. This was quite true. I did.
I am indeed sorry to record that here my mother lost her temper, and there was no end of a fuss. It ended by mother offering me a string of seed pearls for Christmas, and my party dresses cut V front and back, if I would, as she phrazed it, "put him out of my silly head."
"I shall have to write one letter, mother," I said, "to--to break things off. I cannot tear myself out of another"s Life without a word."
She sniffed.
"Very well," she said. "One letter. I trust you to make it only one."
I come now to the next day. How true it is, that "Man"s life is but a jest, a dream, a shadow, bubble, air, a vapour at the best!"
I spent the morning with mother at the dressmakers and she chose two perfectly spiffing things, one of white chiffon over silk, made modafied Empire, with little bunches of roses here and there on it, and when she and the dressmaker were hagling over the roses, I took the scizzors and cut the neck of the lining two inches lower in front. The effect was posatively impressive. The other was blue over orkid, a perfectly pa.s.sionate combination.
When we got home some of the girls had dropped in, and Carter Brooks and Sis were having tea in the den. I am perfectly sure that Sis threw a cigarette in the fire when I went in. When I think of my sitting here alone, when I have done NOTHING, and Sis playing around and smoking cigarettes, and nothing said, all for a difference of 20 months, it makes me furious.
"Let"s go in and play with the children, Leila," he said. "I"m feeling young today."
Which was perfectly silly. He is not Methuzala. Although thinking himself so, or almost.
Well, they went into the drawing room. Elaine Adams was there waiting for me, and Betty Anderson and Jane Raleigh. And I hadn"t been in the room five minutes before I knew that they all knew. It turned out later that Hannah was engaged to the Adams"s butler, and she had told him, and he had told Elaine"s governess, who is still there and does the ordering, and Elaine sends her stockings home for her to darn.
Sis had told Carter, too, I saw that, and among them they had rather a good time. Carter sat down at the piano and struck a few chords, chanting "My Love is like a white, white rose."
"Only you know" he said, turning to me, "that"s wrong. It ought to be a "red, red rose.""
"Certainly not. The word is "white.""
"Oh, is it?" he said, with his head on one side. "Strange that both you and Harold should have got it wrong."
I confess to a feeling of uneasiness at that moment.
Tea came, and Carter insisted on pouring.
"I do so love to pour!" he said. "Really, after a long day"s shopping, tea is the only thing that keeps me going until dinner. Cream or lemon, Leila dear?"
"Both," Sis said in an absent manner, with her eyes on me. "Barbara, come into the den a moment. I want to show you mother"s Xmas gift."
She stocked in ahead of me, and lifted a book from the table. Under it was the photograph.
"You wretched child!" she said. "Where did you get that?"
"That"s not your affair, is it?"
"I"m going to make it my affair. Did he give it to you?"
"Have you read what"s written on it?"
"Where did you meet him?"
I hesitated because I am by nature truthfull. But at last I said:
"At school."
"Oh," she said slowly. "So you met him at school! What was he doing there? Teaching elocution?"
"Elocution!"
"This is Harold, is it?"
"Certainly." Well, he WAS Harold, if I chose to call him that, wasn"t he? Sis gave a little sigh.
"You"re quite hopeless, Bab. And, although I"m perfectly sure you want me to take the thing to mother, I"ll do nothing of the sort."
SHE FLUNG IT INTO THE FIRE. I was raging. It had cost me a dollar. It was quite brown when I got it out, and a corner was burned off. But I got it.
"I"ll thank you to burn your own things," I said with dignaty. And I went back to the drawing room.
The girls and Carter Brooks were talking in an undertone when I got there. I knew it was about me. And Jane came over to me and put her arm around me.
"You poor thing!" she said. "Just fight it out. We"re all with you."
"I"m so helpless, Jane." I put all the despair I could into my voice.
For after all, if they were going to talk about my private Affairs behind my back, I felt that they might as well have something to talk about. As Jane"s second couzin once removed is in this school and as Jane will probably write her all about it, I hope this Theme is read aloud in cla.s.s, so she will get it all straight. Jane is imaginative and may have a wrong idea of things.
"Don"t give in. Let them bully you. They can"t really do anything. And they"re scared. Leila is positively sick."
"I"ve promised to write and break it off," I said in a tence tone.
"If he really loves you," said Jane, "the letter won"t matter." There was a thrill in her voice. Had I not been uneasy at my deciet, I to would have thrilled.
Some fresh m.u.f.fins came in just then and I was starveing. But I waved them away, and stood staring at the fire.
I am writing all of this as truthfully as I can. I am not defending myself. What I did I was driven to, as any one can see. It takes a real shock to make the average Familey wake up to the fact that the youngest daughter is not the Familey baby at seventeen. All I was doing was furnishing the shock. If things turned out badly, as they did, it was because I rather overdid the thing. That is all. My motives were perfectly ireproachible.
Well, they fell on the m.u.f.fins like pigs, and I could hardly stand it.
So I wandered into the den, and it occurred to me to write the letter then. I felt that they all expected me to do something anyhow.
If I had never written the wretched letter things would be better now.
As I say, I overdid. But everything had gone so smoothly all day that I was decieved. But the real reason was a new set of furs. I had secured the dresses and the promise of the necklace on a Poem and a Photograph, and I thought that a good love letter might bring a m.u.f.f. It all shows that it does not do to be grasping.