Bab a Sub-Deb Part 13

"Look here, Miss Barbara," Hannah said, all at once, "what are you doing with this whiskey Flask? And these socks? And--you come right here, and tell me where you got the things in this Suitcase." I stocked over to the bed, and my blood frose in my vains. IT WAS NOT MINE.

Words cannot fully express how I felt. While fully convinsed that there had been a mistake, I knew not when or how. Hannah was staring at me with cold and accusing eyes.

"You're a very young Lady, Miss Barbara," she said, with her eyes full of Suspicion, "to be carrying a Flask about with you." I was as puzzled as she was, but I remained calm and to all apearances Spartan.

"I am young in years," I remarked. "But I have seen Life, Hannah."

Now I meant nothing by this at the time. But it was getting on my nerves to be put in the infant cla.s.s all the time. The Xmas before they had done it, and I had had my revenge. Although it had hurt me more than it hurt them, and if I gave them a fright I gave myself a worse one. As I said at that time:

Oh, what a tangeled web we weive, When first we practice to decieve.

Sir Walter Scott.

Hannah gave me a horrafied Glare, and dipped into the Suitcase again.

She brought up a tin box of Cigarettes, and I thought she was going to have delerium tremens at once.

Well, at first I thought the girls at school had played a Trick on me, and a low down mean Trick at that. There are always those who think it is funny to do that sort of thing, but they are the first to squeel when anything is done to them. Once I put a small garter Snake in a girl's m.u.f.f, and it went up her sleave, which is nothing to some of the things she had done to me. And you would have thought the School was on fire.

Anyhow, I said to myself that some Smarty was trying to get me into trouble, and Hannah would run to the Familey, and they'd never beleive me. All at once I saw all my cherished plans for the summer gone, and me in the Country somewhere with Mademoiselle, and walking through the pasture with a botany in one hand and a folding Cup in the other, in case we found a spring a cow had not stepped in. Mademoiselle was once my Governess, but has retired to private life, except in cases of emergency.

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.