The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  On the train I had a very unpleasant experience, due to Sis opening my Suitcase to look for a magazine, and drawing out a soiled gentleman's coller. She gave me a very peircing Glance, but said nothing and at the next opportunity I threw it out of a window, concealed in a newspaper.

  We now approach the Catastrofe. My book on playwriting divides plays into Introduction, Development, Crisis, Denouement and Catastrofe. And so one may devide life. In my case the Cinder proved the Introduction, as there was none other. I consider that the Suitcase was the Development, my showing it to Jane Raleigh was the Crisis, and the Denouement or Catastrofe occured later on.

  Let us then procede to the Catastrofe.

  Jane Raleigh came to see me off at the train. Her Familey was coming the next day. And instead of Flowers, she put a small bundel into my hands. "Keep it hiden, Bab," she said, "and tear up the card."

  I looked when I got a chance, and she had crocheted me a wash cloth, with a pink edge. "For your linen Chest," the card said, "and I'm doing a bath towle to match."

  I tore up the Card, but I put the wash cloth with the other things I was trying to hide, because it is bad luck to throw a Gift away. But I hoped, as I seemed to be getting more things to conceal all the time, that she would make me a small bath towle, and not the sort as big as a bed spread.

  Father went with us to get us settled, and we had a long talk while mother and Sis made out lists for Dinners and so forth.

  "Look here, Bab," he said, "somthing's wrong with you. I seem to have lost my only boy, and have got instead a sort of tear-y young person I don't recognize."

  "I'm growing up, father" I said. I did not mean to rebuke him, but ye gods! Was I the only one to see that I was no longer a Child?

  "Somtimes I think you are not very happy with us."

  "Happy?" I pondered. "Well, after all, what is happiness?"

  He took a spell of coughing then, and when it was over he put his arms around me and was quite afectionate.

  "What a queer little rat it is!" he said.

  I only repeat this to show how even my father, with all his afection and good qualities, did not understand and never would understand. My Heart was full of a longing to be understood. I wanted to tell him my yearnings for better things, my aspirations to make my life a great and glorious thing. AND HE DID NOT UNDERSTAND.

  He gave me five dollars instead. Think of the Tradgedy of it!

  As we went along, and he pulled my ear and finaly went asleep with a hand on my shoulder, the bareness of my Life came to me. I shook with sobs. And outside somewhere Sis and mother made Dinner lists. Then and there I made up my mind to work hard and acheive, to become great and powerful, to write things that would ring the Hearts of men--and women, to, of course--and to come back to them some day, famous and beautiful, and when they sued for my love, to be kind and hauty, but cold. I felt that I would always be cold, although gracious.

  I decided then to be a writer of plays first, and then later on to act in them. I would thus be able to say what came into my head, as it was my own play. Also to arrange the seens so as to wear a variety of gowns, including evening things. I spent the rest of the afternoon manacuring my nails in our state room.

  Well, we got there at last. It was a large house, but everything was to thin about it. The School will understand this, the same being the condition of the new Freshman dormitory. The walls were to thin, and so were the floors. The Doors shivered in the wind, and palpatated if you slamed them. Also you could hear every Sound everywhere.

  I looked around me in dispair. Where, oh where, was I to find my cherished solatude? Where?

  On account of Hannah hating a new place, and considering the house an insult to the Servants, especialy only one bathroom for the lot of them, she let me unpack alone, and so far I was safe. But where was I to work? Fate settled that for me however.

  There is no armour against fate; Death lays his icy hand on Kings.

  J. Shirley; Dirge.

  Previously, however, mother and I had had a talk. She sailed into my room one evening, dressed for dinner, and found me in my ROBE DE NUIT, curled up in the window seat admiring the view of the ocean.

  "Well!" she said. "Is this the way you intend going to dinner?"

  "I do not care for any dinner," I replied. Then, seeing she did not understand, I said coldly. "How can I care for food, mother, when the Sea looks like a dying ople?"

  "Dying pussycat!" mother said, in a very nasty way. "I don't know what has come over you, Barbara. You used to be a normle Child, and there was some accounting for what you were going to do. But now! Take off that nightgown, and I'll have Tanney hold off dinner for half an hour."

  Tanney was the butler who had taken Patrick's place.

  "If you insist," I said coldly. "But I shall not eat."

  "Why not?"

  "You wouldn't understand, mother."

  "Oh, I wouldn't? Well, suppose I try," she said, and sat down. "I am not very intellagent, but if you put it clearly I may grasp it. Perhaps you'd better speak slowly, also."

  So, sitting there in my room, while the sea throbed in tireless beats against the shore, while the light faded and the stars issued, one by one, like a rash on the Face of the sky, I told mother of my dreams. I intended, I said, to write Life as it realy is, and not as supposed to be.

  "It may in places be, ugly" I said, "but Truth is my banner. The Truth is never ugly, because it is real. It is, for instance, not ugly if a man is in love with the wife of another, if it is real love, and not the passing fansy of a moment."

  Mother opened her mouth, but did not say anything.

  "There was a time," I said, "when I longed for things that now have no value whatever to me. I cared for clothes and even for the attentions of the Other Sex. But that has passed away, mother. I have now no thought but for my Career."

  I watched her face, and soon the dreadfull understanding came to me. She, to, did not understand. My literary Aspirations were as nothing to her!

  Oh, the bitterness of that moment. My mother, who had cared for me as a child, and obeyed my slightest wish, no longer understood me. And sadest of all, there was no way out. None. Once, in my Youth, I had beleived that I was not the child of my parents at all, but an adopted one--perhaps of rank and kept out of my inheritance by those who had selfish motives. But now I knew that I had no rank or Inheritance, save what I should carve out for myself. There was no way out. None.

  Mother rose slowly, stareing at me with perfectly fixed and glassy Eyes.

  "I am absolutely sure," she said, "that you are on the edge of somthing. It may be tiphoid, or it may be an elopement. But one thing is certain. You are not normle."

  With this she left me to my Thoughts. But she did not neglect me. Sis came up after Dinner, and I saw mother's fine hand in that. Although not hungry in the usual sense of the word, I had begun to grow rather empty, and was nibling out of a box of Chocolates when Sis came.

  She got very little out of me. To one with softness and tenderness I would have told all, but Sis is not that sort. And at last she showed her clause.

  "Don't fool yourself for a minute," she said. "This literary pose has not fooled anybody. Either you're doing it to apear Interesting, or you've done somthing you're scared about. Which is it?"

  I refused to reply.

  "Because if it's the first, and you're trying to look literary, you are going about it wrong," she said. "Real Literary People don't go round mooning and talking about the ople sea."

  I saw mother had been talking, and I drew myself up.

  "They look and act like other people," said Leila, going to the bureau and spilling Powder all over the place. "Look at Beecher."

  "Beecher!" I cried, with a thrill that started inside my elbows. (I have read this to one or two of the girls, and they say there is no such thrill. But not all people act alike under the influence of emotion, and mine is in my Arms, as stated.)

  "The playwright," Sis said. "He's staying next door. And if h
e does any languishing it is not by himself."

  There may be some who have for a long time had an Ideal, but without hoping ever to meet him, and then suddenly learning that he is nearby, with indeed but a wall or two between, can be calm and cool. But I am not like that. Although long supression has taught me to disemble at times, where my Heart is concerned I am powerless.

  For it was at last my heart that was touched. I, who had scorned the Other Sex and felt that I was born cold and always would be cold, that day I discovered the truth. Reginald Beecher was my ideal. I had never spoken to him, nor indeed seen him, except for his pictures. But the very mention of his name brought a lump to my Throat.

  Feeling better imediately, I got Sis out of the room and coaxed Hannah to bring me some dinner. While she was sneaking it out of the Pantrey I was dressing, and soon, as a new being, I was out on the stone bench at the foot of the lawn, gazing with wrapt eyes at the sea.

  But Fate was against me. Eddie Perkins saw me there and came over. He had but recently been put in long trowsers, and those not his best ones but only white flannels. He was never sure of his garters, and was always looking to see if his socks were coming down. Well, he came over just as I was sure I saw Reginald Beecher next door on the veranda, and made himself a nusance right away, trying all sorts of kid tricks, such as snaping a rubber Band at me, and pulling out Hairpins.

  But I felt that I must talk to somone. So I said:

  "Eddie, if you had your choice of love or a Career, which would it be?"

  "Why not both," he said, hiching the rubber band onto one of his front teeth and playing on it. "Niether ought to take up all a fellow's time. Say, listen to this! Talk about a eukelele!"

  "A woman can never have both."

  He played a while, struming with one finger until the hand sliped off and stung him on the lip.

  "Once," I said, "I dreamed of a Career. But I beleive love's the most important."

  Well, I shall pass lightly over what followed. Why is it that a girl cannot speak of Love without every member of the Other Sex present, no matter how young, thinking it is he? And as for mother maintaining that I kissed that wreched Child, and they saw me from the drawing-room, it is not true and never was true. It was but one more Misunderstanding which convinced the Familey that I was carrying on all manner of afairs.

  Carter Brooks had arrived that day, and was staying at the Perkins' cottage. I got rid of the Perkins' baby, as his Nose was bleeding--but I had not slaped him hard at all, and felt little or no compunction--when I heard Carter coming down the walk. He had called to see Leila, but she had gone to a beech dance and left him alone. He never paid any attention to me when she was around, and I recieved him cooly.

  "Hello!" he said.

  "Well?" I replied.

  "Is that the way you greet me, Bab?"

  "It's the way I would greet most any Left-over," I said. "I eat hash at school, but I don't have to pretend to like it."

  "I came to see YOU."

  "How youthfull of you!" I replied, in stinging tones.

  He sat down on a Bench and stared at me.

  "What's got into you lately?" he said. "Just as you're geting to be the prettiest girl around, and I'm strong for you, you--you turn into a regular Rattlesnake."

  The kindness of his tone upset me considerably, to who so few kind Words had come recently. I am compeled to confess that I wept, although I had not expected to, and indeed shed few tears, although bitter ones.

  How could I posibly know that the chaste Salute of Eddie Perkins and my head on Carter Brooks' shoulder were both plainly visable against the rising moon? But this was the Case, especialy from the house next door.

  But I digress.

  Suddenly Carter held me off and shook me somewhat.

  "Sit up here and tell me about it," he said. "I'm geting more scared every minute. You are such an impulsive little Beast, and you turn the fellows' heads so--look here, is Jane Raleigh lying, or did you run away and get married to somone?"

  I am aware that I should have said, then and there, No. But it seemed a shame to spoil Things just as they were geting interesting. So I said, through my tears:

  "Nobody understands me. Nobody. And I'm so lonely."

  "And of course you haven't run away with anyone, have you?"

  "Not--exactly."

  "Bless you, Bab!" he said. And I might as well say that he kissed me, because he did, although unexpectedly. Sombody just then moved a Chair on the porch next door and coughed rather loudly, so Carter drew a long breath and got up.

  "There's somthing about you lately, Bab, that I don't understand," he said. "You--you're mysterious. That's the word. In a couple of Years you'll be the real thing."

  "Come and see me then," I said in a demure manner. And he went away.

  So I sat on my Bench and looked at the sea and dreamed. It seemed to me that Centuries must have passed since I was a light-hearted girl, running up and down that beech, paddling, and so forth, with no thought of the future farther away than my next meal.

  Once I lived to eat. Now I merely ate to live, and hardly that. The fires of Genius must be fed, but no more.

  Sitting there, I suddenly made a discovery. The boat house was near me, and I realize that upstairs, above the Bath-houses, et cetera, there must be a room or two. The very thought intriged me (a new word for interest, but coming into use, and sounding well).

  Solatude--how I craved it for my work. And here it was, or would be when I had got the Place fixed up. True, the next door boat-house was close, but a boat-house is a quiet place, generaly, and I knew that nowhere, aside from the dessert, is there perfect Silence.

  I investagated at once, but found the place locked and the boatman gone. However, there was a latice, and I climbed up that and got in. I had a Fright there, as it seemed to be full of people, but I soon saw it was only the Familey bathing suits hung up to dry. Aside from the odor of drying things it was a fine study, and I decided to take a small table there, and the various tools of my Profession.

  Climbing down, however, I had a surprise. For a man was just below, and I nearly put my foot on his shoulder in the darkness.

  "Hello!" he said. "So it's YOU."

  I was quite speachless. It was Mr. Beecher himself, in his dinner clothes and bareheaded.

  Oh flutering Heart, be still. Oh Pen, move steadily. OH TEMPORA O MORES!

  "Let me down," I said. I was still hanging to the latice.

  "In a moment," he said. "I have an idea that the instant I do you'll vanish. And I have somthing to tell you."

  I could hardly beleive my ears.

  "You see," he went on, "I think you must move that Bench."

  "Bench?"

  "You seem to be so very popular," he Said." And of course I'm only a transient and don't matter. But some evening one of the admirers may be on the Patten's porch, while another is with you on the bench. And--the Moon rises beyond it."

  I was silent with horor. So that was what he thought of me. Like all the others, he, to, did not understand. He considered me a Flirt, when my only Thoughts were serious ones, of imortality and so on.

  "You'd better come down now," he said. "I was afraid to warn you until I saw you climbing the latice. Then I knew you were still young enough to take a friendly word of Advise."

  I got down then and stood before him. He was magnifacent. Is there anything more beautiful than a tall man with a gleaming expance of dress shirt? I think not.

  But he was staring at me.

  "Look here," he said. "I'm afraid I've made a mistake after all. I thought you were a little girl."

  "That needn't worry you. Everybody does," I replied. "I'm seventeen, but I shall be a mere Child until I come out."

  "Oh!" he said.

  "One day I am a Child in the nursery," I said. "And the next I'm grown up and ready to be sold to the highest Bider."

  "I beg your pardon, I----"

  "But I am as grown up now as I will ever be," I said. "And indeed more s
o. I think a great deal now, because I have plenty of Time. But my sister never thinks at all. She is to busy."

  "Suppose we sit on the Bench. The moon is to high to be a menace, and besides, I am not dangerous. Now, what do you think about?"

  "About Life, mostly. But of course there is Death, which is beautiful but cold. And--one always thinks of Love, doesn't one?"

  "Does one?" he asked. I could see he was much interested. As for me, I dared not consider whom it was who sat beside me, almost touching. That way lay madness.

  "Don't you ever," he said, "reflect on just ordinary things, like Clothes and so forth?"

  I shruged my shoulders.

  "I don't get enough new clothes to worry about. Mostly I think of my Work."

  "Work?"

  "I am a writer" I said in a low, ernest tone.

  "No! How--how amazing. What do you write?"

  "I'm on a play now."

  "A Comedy?"

  "No. A Tradgedy. How can I write a Comedy when a play must always end in a catastrofe? The book says all plays end in Crisis, Denouement and Catastrofe."

  "I can't beleive it," he said. "But, to tell you a Secret, I never read any books about Plays."

  "We are not all gifted from berth, as you are," I observed, not to merely please him, but because I considered it the simple Truth.

  He pulled out his watch and looked at it in the moonlight.

  "All this reminds me," he said, "that I have promised to go to work tonight. But this is so--er--thrilling that I guess the work can wait. Well--now go on."

  Oh, the Joy of that night! How can I describe it? To be at last in the company of one who understood, who--as he himself had said in "Her Soul"--spoke my own languidge! Except for the occasional mosquitoe, there was no sound save the turgescent sea and his Voice.

  Often since that time I have sat and listened to conversation. How flat it sounds to listen to father prozing about Gold, or Sis about Clothes, or even to the young men who come to call, and always talk about themselves.

  We were at last interupted in a strange manner. Mr. Patten came down their walk and crossed to us, walking very fast. He stopped right in front of us and said:

  "Look here, Reg, this is about all I can stand."