"I have a suit of Clothes you can have."
"Thanks awfully," he said. "But from the slight acquaintance we have had, I don't beleive they would fit me."
"Gentleman's Clothes," I said fridgidly.
"You have?"
"In my Studio," I said. "I can bring them, if you like. They look quite good, although Creased."
"You know" he said, after a moment's silence, "I can't quite beleive this is realy happening to me! Go and bring the suit of clothes, and--you don't happen to have a cigar, I suppose,?"
"I have a large box of Cigarettes."
"It is true," I heard him say through the door. "It is all true. I am here, locked in. The Play is almost done. And a very young lady on the doorstep is offering me a suit of Clothes and Tobaco. I pinch myself. I am awake."
Alas! Mingled with my joy at serving my Ideal there was also greif. My idle had feet of clay. He was a slave, like the rest of us, to his body. He required clothes and tobaco. I felt that, before long, he might even ask for an apple, or something to stay the pangs of hunger. This I felt I could not bare.
Perhaps I would better pass over quickly the events of the next hour. I got the suit and the cigarettes, and even Jane's bath towle, and through them in to him. Also I beleive he took a shower, as I heard the water running, At about seven o'clock he said he had finished the play. He put on the Clothes which he observed almost fitted him, although gayer than he usually wore, and said that if I would give him a hair pin he thought he could pick the Lock. But he did not succeed.
Being now dressed, however, he drew a chair to the window and we talked together. It seemed like a dream that I should be there, on such intimate terms with a great Playwright, who had just, even if under compulsion, finished a last Act, I bared my very soul to him, such as about resembling Julia Marlowe, and no one understanding my craveing to acheive a Place in the World of Art. We were once interupted by Hannah looking for me for dinner. But I hid in a bath-house, and she went away.
What was Food to me compared with such a Conversation?
When Hannah had disappeared, he said suddenly:
"It's rather unusual, isn't it, your having a suit of clothes and everything in your--er--studio?"
But I did not explain fully, merely saving that it was a painful story.
At half past seven I saw mother on the veranda looking for me, and I ducked out of sight, I was by this time very hungry, although I did not like to mention the fact, But Mr. Beecher made a suggestion, which was this: that the Pattens were evadently going to let him starve until he got through work, and that he would see them in perdetion before he would be the Butt for their funny remarks when they freed him. He therfore tried to escape out the window, but stuck fast, and finaly gave it up.
At last he said:
"Look here, you're a curious child, but a nervy one. How'd you like to see if you can get the Key? If you do we'll go to a hotel and have a real meal, and we can talk about your Career."
Although quivering with Terror, I consented. How could I do otherwise, with such a prospect? For now I began to see that all other Emotions previously felt were as nothing to this one. I confess, without shame, that I felt the stiring of the Tender Passion in my breast. Ah me, that it should have died ere it had hardly lived!
"Where is the key?" I asked, in a wrapt but anxious tone.
He thought a while.
"Generaly," he said, "it hangs on a nail at the back entry. But the chances are that Patten took it up to his room this time, for safety, You'd know it if you saw it. It has some buttons off sombody's batheing suit tied to it."
Here it was necessary to hide again, as father came stocking out, calling me in an angry tone. But shortly afterwards I was on my way to the Patten's house, on shaking Knees. It was by now twilight, that beautiful period of Romanse, although the dinner hour also. Through the dusk I sped, toward what? I knew not.
The Pattens and the one-peace lady were at dinner, and having a very good time, in spite of having locked a Guest in the bath-house. Being used to servants and prowling around, since at one time when younger I had a habit of taking things from the pantrey, I was quickly able to see that the Key was not in the entry. I therfore went around to the front Door and went in, being prepared, if discovered, to say that somone was in their bath-house and they ought to know it. But I was not heard among their sounds of revelry, and was able to proceed upstairs, which I did.
But not having asked which was Mr. Patten's room, I was at a loss and almost discovered by a maid who was turning down the beds--much to early, also, and not allowed in the best houses until nine-thirty, since otherwise the rooms look undressed and informle.
I had but Time to duck into another chamber, and from there to a closet.
I REMAINED IN THAT CLOSET ALL NIGHT.
I will explain. No sooner had the maid gone than a Woman came into the room and closed the door. I heard her moving around and I suddenly felt that she was going to bed, and might get her ROBE DE NUIT out of the closet. I was petrafied. But it seems, while she really WAS undressing at that early hour, the maid had laid her night clothes out, and I was saved.
Very soon a knock came to the door, and somhody came in, like Mrs. Patten's voice and said: "You're not going to bed, surely!"
"I'm going to pretend to have a sick headache," said the other Person, and I knew it was the One-peace Lady. "He's going to come back in a frenzey, and he'll take it out on me, unless I'm prepared."
"Poor Reggie!" said Mrs. Patten, "To think of him locked in there alone, and no Clothes or anything. It's too funny for words."
"You're not married to him."
My heart stopped beating. Was SHE married to him? She was indeed. My dream was over. And the worst part of it was that for a married man I had done without Food or exercise and now stood in a hot closet in danger of a terrable fuss.
"No, thank Heaven!" said Mrs. Patten. "But it was the only way to make him work. He is a lazy dog. But don't worry. We'll feed him before he sees you. He's always rather tractible after he's fed."
Were ALL my dreams to go? Would they leave nothing to my shattered ilusions? Alas, no.
"Jolly him a little, to," said----can I write it?--Mrs. Beecher. "Tell him he's the greatest thing in the World. That will help some. He's vain, you know, awfully vain. I expect he's written a lot of piffle."
Had they listened they would have heard a low, dry sob, wrung from my tortured heart. But Mrs. Beecher had started a vibrater, and my anguished cry was lost.
"Well," said Mrs. Patten, "Will has gone down to let him out, I expect he'll attack him. He's got a vile Temper. I'll sit with you till he comes back, if you don't mind. I'm feeling nervous."
It was indeed painful to recall the next half hour. I must tell the truth however. They discussed us, especialy mother, who had not called. They said that we thought we were the whole summer Colony, although every one was afraid of mother's tongue, and nobody would marry Leila, except Carter Brooks, and he was poor and no prospects. And that I was an incorrigable, and carried on somthing gastly, and was going to be put in a convent. I became justly furious and was about to step out and tell them a few plain Facts, when sombody hammered at the door and then came in. It was Mr. Patten.
"He's gone!" he said.
"Well, he won't go far, in bathing trunks," said Mrs. Beecher.
"That's just it. His bathing trunks are there."
"Well, he won't go far WITHOUT them!"
"He's gone so far I can't locate him."
I heard Mrs. Beecher get up.
"Are you in ernest, Will?" she said. "Do you mean that he has gone without a Stich of clothes, and can't be found?"
Mrs. Patten gave a sort of screach.
"You don't think--oh Will, he's so tempermental. You don't think he's drowned himself?"
"No such luck," said Mrs. Beecher, in a cold tone. I hated her for it. True, he had decieved me. He was not as I had thought him. In our to conversations he had not mentioned his wife, leavei
ng me to beleive him free to love "where he listed," as the poet says.
"There are a few clues," said Mr. Patten. "He got out by means of a wire hairpin, for one thing. And he took the manuscript with him, which he'd hardly have done if he meant to drown himself. Or even if, as we fear, he had no Pockets. He has smoked a lot of cigarettes out of a candy box, which I did not supply him, and he left behind a bath towle that does not, I think, belong to us."
"I should think he would have worn it," said Mrs. Beecher, in a scornfull tone.
"Here's the bath towle," Mr. Patten went on. "You may recognize the initials. I don't."
"B. P. A.," said Mrs. Beecher. "Look here, don't they call that--that fliberty-gibbet next door `Barbara'?"
"The little devil!" said Mr. Patten, in a raging tone. "She let him out, and of course he's done no work on the Play or anything. I'd like to choke her."
Nobody spoke then, and my heart beat fast and hard. I leave it to anybody, how they'd like to be shut in a closet and threatened with a violent Death from without. Would or would they not ever be the same person afterwards?
"I'll tell you what I'd do," said the Beecher woman. "I'd climb up the back of father, next door, and tell him what his little Daughter has done, Because I know she's mixed up in it, towle or no towle. Reg is always sappy when they're seventeen. And she's been looking moon-eyed at him for days."
Well, the Pattens went away, and Mrs. Beecher manacured her Nails,-- I could hear her fileing them--and sang around and was not much concerned, although for all she knew he was in the briney deep, a corpse. How true it is that "the paths of glory lead but to the grave."
I got very tired and much hoter, and I sat down on the floor. After what seemed like hours, Mrs. Patten came back, all breathless, and she said:
"The girl's gone to, Clare."
"What girl?"
"Next door. If you want Excitement, they've got it. The mother is in hysterics and there's a party searching the beech for her body, The truth is, of course, if that towle means anything"
"That Reg has run away with her, of course," said Mrs. Beecher, in a resined tone. "I wish he would grow up and learn somthing. He's becoming a nusance. And when there are so many Interesting People to run away with, to choose that chit!"
Yes, she said that, And in my retreat I could but sit and listen, and of course perspire, which I did freely. Mrs. Patten went away, after talking about the "scandle" for some time. And I sat and thought of the beech being searched for my Body, a thought which filled my Eyes with tears of pity for what might have been, I still hoped Mrs. Beecher would go to bed, but she did not. Through the key hole I could see her with a Book, reading, and not caring at all that Mr. Beecher's body, and mine to, might be washing about in the cruel Sea, or have eloped to New York.
I lothed her.
At last I must have slept, for a bell rang, and there I was still in the closet, and she was ansering it.
"Arrested?" she said, "Well, I should think he'd better be, If what you say about clothing is true.... Well, then--what's he arrested for?... Oh, kidnaping! Well, if I'm any judge, they ought to arrest the Archibald girl for kidnaping HIM. No, don't bother me with it tonight. I'll try to read myself to sleep."
So this was Marriage! Did she flee to her unjustly acused husband's side and comfort him? Not she. She went to bed.
At daylight, being about smotherd, I opened the closet door and drew a breath of fresh air. Also I looked at her, and she was asleep, with her hair in patent wavers. Ye gods!
The wife of Reginald Beecher thus to distort her looks at night! I could not bare it.
I averted my eyes, and on my tiptoes made for the Window.
My sufferings were over. In a short time I had slid down and was making my way through the dewey morn toward my home. Before the sun was up, or more than starting, I had climbed to my casement by means of a wire trellis, and put on my ROBE DE NUIT. But before I settled to sleep I went to the pantrey and there satisfied the pangs of nothing since Breakfast the day before. All the lights seemed to be on, on the lower floor, which I considered wastful of Tanney, the butler. But being sleepy, gave it no further thought. And so to bed, as the great English dairy-keeper, Pepys, had said in his dairy.
It seemed but a few moments later that I heard a scream, and opening my eyes, saw Leila in the doorway. She screamed again, and mother came and stood beside her. Although very drowsy, I saw that they still wore their dinner clothes.
They stared as if transfixed, and then mother gave a low moan, and said to Sis:
"That unfortunate man has been in Jail all night."
And Sis said: "Jane Raleigh is crazy. That's all." Then they looked at me, and mother burst into tears. But Sis said:
"You little imp! Don't tell me you've been in that bed all night. I KNOW BETTER."
I closed my eyes. They were not of the understanding sort, and never would be.
"If that's the way you feel I shall tell you nothing," I said wearily.
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" mother said, in a slow and dreadful voice.
Well, I saw then that a part of the Truth must be disclosed, especialy since she has for some time considered sending me to a convent, although without cause, and has not done so for fear of my taking the veil. So I told her this. I said:
"I spent the night shut in a clothes closet, but where is not my secret. I cannot tell you."
"Barbara! You MUST tell me."
"It is not my secret alone, mother."
She caught at the foot of the bed.
"Who was shut with you in that closet?" she demanded in a shaking voice. "Barbara, there is another wreched Man in all this. It could not have been Mr. Beecher, because he has been in the Station House all night."
I sat up, leaning on one elbow, and looked at her ernestly.
"Mother" I said, "you have done enough damage, interfering with Careers--not only mine, but another's imperiled now by not haveing a last Act. I can tell you no More, except"--here my voice took on a deep and intence fiber--"that I have done nothing to be ashamed of, although unconventional."
Mother put her hands to her Face, and emited a low, despairing cry.
"Come," Leila said to her, as to a troubled child. "Come, and Hannah can use the vibrater on your spine."
So she went, but before she left she said:
"Barbara, if you will only promise to be a good girl, and give us a chance to live this Scandle down, I will give you anything you ask for."
"Mother!" Sis said, in an angry tone.
"What can I do, Leila?" mother said. "The girl is atractive, and probably men will always be following her and making trouble. Think of last Winter. I know it is Bribery, but it is better than Scandle."
"I want nothing, mother," I said, in a low, heartstricken tone, "save to be allowed to live my own life and to have a Career."
"My Heavens," mother said, "if I hear that word again, I'll go crazy."
So she went away, and Sis came over and looked down at me.
"Well!" she said. "What's happened anyhow? Of course you've been up to some Mischeif, but I don't suppose anybody will ever know the Truth of it. I was hopeing you'd make it this time and get married, and stop worrying us."
"Go away, please, and let me Sleep," I said. "As to getting married, under no circumstances did I expect to marry him. He has a Wife already. Personally, I think she's a totle loss. She wears patent wavers at night, and sleeps with her Mouth open. But who am I to interfere with the marriage bond? I never have and never will."
But Sis only gave me a wild look and went away.
This, dear readers and schoolmates, is the true story of my meeting with and parting from Reginald Beecher, the playwright. Whatever the papers may say, it is not true, except the Fact that he was recognized by Jane Raleigh, who knew the suit he wore, when in the act of pawning his ring to get money to escape from his captors (I. E., The Pattens) with. It was the necktie which struck her first, and also his gilty expression. As I was missing by that time,
Jane put two and two together and made an Elopement.
Sometimes I sit and think things over, my fingers wandering "over the ivory keys" of the typewriter they gave me to promise not to elope with anybody--although such a thing is far from my mind--and the World seems a cruel and unjust place, especialy to those with ambition.
For Reginald Beecher is no longer my ideal, my Night of the pen. I will tell about that in a few words.
Jane Raleigh and I went to a matinee late in September before returning to our institutions of learning. Jane cluched my arm as we looked at our programs and pointed to something.
How my heart beat! For whatever had come between us, I was still loyal to him.
This was a new play by him!
"Ah," my heart seemed to say, "now again you will hear his dear words, although spoken by alien mouths.
The love seens----"
I could not finish. Although married and forever beyond me, I could still hear his manly tones as issueing from the door of the Bath-house. I thrilled with excitement. As the curtain rose I closed my eyes in ecstacy.
"Bab!" Jane said, in a quavering tone.
I looked. What did I see? The bath-house itself, the very one. And as I stared I saw a girl, wearing her hair as I wear mine, cross the stage with a Bunch of Keys in her hand, and say to the bath-house door.
"Can't I do somthing to help? I do so want to help you."
MY VERY WORDS.
And a voice from beyond the bath-house door said:
"Who's that?"
HIS WORDS.
I could bare no more. Heedless of Jane's Protests and Anguish, I got up and went out, into the light of day. My body was bent with misry. Because at last I knew that, like mother and all the rest, HE TO DID NOT UNDERSTAND ME, AND NEVER WOULD. To him I was but material, the stuff that plays are made of!
And now we know that he never could know, And did not understand. Kipling.
Ignoring Jane's observation that the tickets had cost two dollars each, I gathered up the scattered Skeins of my life together, and fled.
CHAPTER III
HER DIARY: BEING THE DAILY JOURNAL OF THE SUB-DEB
JANUARY 1st. I have today recieved this dairy from home, having come back a few days early to make up a French Condition.
The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart Page 160
