Weather, clear and cold.
New Year's dinner. Roast chicken (Turkey being very expencive), mashed Turnips, sweet Potatos and minse Pie.
It is my intention to record in this book the details of my Daily Life, my thoughts which are to sacred for utterence, and my ambitions. Because who is there to whom I can speak them? I am surounded by those who exist for the mere Pleasures of the day, or whose lives are bound up in Resitations.
For instance, at dinner today, being mostly faculty and a few girls who live in the Far West, the conversation was entirely on buying a Phonograph for dancing because the music teacher has the meazles and is quarentined in the infirmery. And on Miss Everett's couzin, who has written a play.
When one looks at Miss Everett, one recognises that no couzin of hers could write a play.
New Year's resolution--to help some one every day. Today helped Mademoiselle to put on her rubers.
JANUARY 2ND. Today I wrote my French theme, beginning, "Les hommes songent moins a leur AME QU A leur CORPS. Mademoiselle sent for me and objected, saying that it was not a theme for a young girl, and that I must write a new one, on the subject of pears. How is one to develope in this atmosphere?
Some of the girls are coming back. They stragle in, and put the favers they got at Cotillions on the dresser, and their holaday gifts, and each one relates some amorus experience while at home. Dear dairy, is there somthing wrong with me, that Love has passed me by? I have had offers of Devotion but none that apealed to me, being mostly either to young or not atracting me by physicle charm. I am not cold, although frequently acused of it, Beneath my fridgid Exterior beats a warm heart. I intend to be honest in this dairy, and so I admit it. But, except for passing Fansies--one being, alas, for a married man--I remain without the Divine Passion.
What must it be to thrill at the aproach of the loved Form? To harken to each ring of the telephone bell, in the hope that, if it is not the Idolised Voice, it is at least a message from it? To waken in the morning and, looking around the familiar room, to muze: "Today I may see him--on the way to the Post Office, or rushing past in his racing car." And to know that at the same moment HE to is muzing: "Today I may see her, as she exercises herself at basket ball, or mounts her horse for a daily canter!"
Although I have no horse. The school does not care for them, considering walking the best exercise.
Have flunked the French again, Mademoiselle not feeling well, and marking off for the smallest Thing.
Today's helpfull Deed--asisted one of the younger girls with her spelling.
JANUARY 4TH. Miss Everett's couzin's play is coming here. The school is to have free tickets, as they are "trying it on the dog." Which means seeing if it is good enough for the large cities.
We have desided, if Everett marks us well in English from now on, to aplaud it, but if she is unpleasent, to sit still and show no interest.
JANUARY 5TH, 6TH, 7TH, 8TH. Bad weather, which is depressing to one of my Temperment. Also boil on noze.
A few helpfull Deeds--nothing worth putting down.
JANUARY 9TH. Boil cut.
Again I can face my Image in my mirror, and not shrink.
Mademoiselle is sick and no French. MISERICORDE!
Helpfull Deed--sent Mademoiselle some fudge, but this school does not encourage kindness. Reprimanded for cooking in room. School sympathises with me. We will go to Miss Everett's couzin's play, but we will dam it with faint praise.
JANUARY 10TH. I have written this Date, and now I sit back and regard it. As it is impressed on this white paper, so, Dear Dairy, is it written on my Soul. To others it may be but the tenth of January. To me it is the day of days. Oh, tenth of January! Oh, Monday. Oh, day of my awakning!
It is now late at night, and around me my schoolmates are sleeping the sleep of the young and Heart free. Lights being off, I am writing by the faint luminocity of a candle. Propped up in bed, my mackinaw coat over my ROBE DE NUIT for warmth, I sit and dream. And as I dream I still hear in my ears his final words: "My darling. My woman!"
How wonderfull to have them said to one Night after Night, the while being in his embrase, his tender arms around one! I refer to the heroine in the play, to whom he says the above raptureous words.
Coming home from the theater tonight, still dazed with the revelation of what I am capable of, once aroused, I asked Miss Everett if her couzin had said anything about Mr. Egleston being in love with the Leading Character. She observed:
"No. But he may be. She is very pretty."
"Possably," I remarked. "But I should like to see her in the morning, when she gets up."
All the girls were perfectly mad about Mr. Egleston, although pretending merely to admire his Art. But I am being honest, as I agreed at the start, and now I know, as I sit here with the soft, although chilly breeses of the night blowing on my hot brow, now I know that this thing that has come to me is Love. Morover, it is the Love of my Life. He will never know it, but I am his. He is exactly my Ideal, strong and tall and passionate. And clever, to. He said some awfuly clever things.
I beleive that he saw me. He looked in my direction. But what does it matter? I am small, insignifacant. He probably thinks me a mere child, although seventeen.
What matters, oh Dairy, is that I am at last in Love. It is hopeless. Just now, when I had written that word, I buried my face in my hands. There is no hope. None. I shall never see him again. He passed out of my life on the 11:45 train. But I love him. MON DIEU, how I love him!
JANUARY 11TH. We are going home. WE ARE GOING HOME. WE ARE GOING HOME. WE ARE GOING HOME!
Mademoiselle has the meazles.
JANUARY 13TH. The Familey managed to restrain its ecstacy on seeing me today. The house is full of people, as they are having a Dinner-Dance tonight. Sis had moved into my room, to let one of the visitors have hers, and she acted in a very unfilial manner when she came home and found me in it.
"Well!" she said. "Expelled at last?"
"Not at all," I replied in a lofty manner. "I am here through no fault of my own. And I'd thank you to have Hannah take your clothes off my bed."
She gave me a bitter glanse.
"I never knew it to fail!" she said. "Just as everything is fixed, and we're recovering from you're being here for the Holadays, you come back and stir up a lot of trouble. What brought you, anyhow?"
"Meazles."
She snached up her ball gown.
"Very well," she said. "I'll see that you're quarentined, Miss Barbara, all right. And If you think you're going to slip downstairs tonight after dinner and WORM yourself into this party, I'll show you."
She flounsed out, and shortly afterwards mother took a minute from the Florest, and came upstairs.
"I do hope you are not going to be troublesome, Barbara," she said. "You are too young to understand, but I want everything to go well tonight, and Leila ought not to be worried."
"Can't I dance a little?"
"You can sit on the stairs and watch." She looked fidgity. "I--I'll send up a nice dinner, and you can put on your dark blue, with a fresh collar, and--it ought to satisfy you, Barbara, that you are at home and posibly have brought the meazles with you, without making a lot of fuss. When you come out----"
"Oh, very well," I murmured, in a resined tone. "I don't care enough about it to want to dance with a lot of Souses anyhow."
"Barbara!" said mother.
"I suppose you have some one on the String for her," I said, with the ABANDON of my thwarted Hopes. "Well, I hope she gets him. Because if not I darsay I shall be kept in the Cradle for years to come."
"You will come out when vou reach a proper Age," she said, "if your Impertanence does not kill me off before my Time."
Dear Dairy, I am fond of my mother, and I felt repentent and stricken.
So I became more agreable, although feeling all the time that she does not and never will understand my Temperment. I said:
"I don't care about Society, and you know it, mother. If you'll keep Leila
out of this room, which isn't much but is my Castle while here, I'll probably go to bed early."
"Barbara, sometimes I think you have no afection for your Sister."
I had agreed to honesty January first, so I replied.
"I have, of course, mother. But I am fonder of her while at school than at home. And I should be a better Sister if not condemed to her old things, including hats which do not suit my Tipe."
Mother moved over magestically to the door and shut it. Then she came and stood over me.
"I've come to the conclusion, Barbara," she said, "to appeal to your better Nature. Do you wish Leila to be married and happy?"
"I've just said, mother----"
"Because a very interesting thing is happening," said mother, trying to look playfull. "I--a chance any girl would jump at."
So here I sit, Dear Dairy, while there are sounds of revelery below, and Sis jumps at her chance, which is the Honorable Page Beres ford, who is an Englishman visiting here because he has a weak heart and can't fight. And father is away on business, and I am all alone.
I have been looking for a rash, but no luck.
Ah me, how the strains of the orkestra recall that magic night in the theater when Adrian Egleston looked down into my eyes and although ostensably to an actress, said to my beating heart: "My Darling! My Woman!"
3 A. M. I wonder if I can controll my hands to write.
In mother's room across the hall I can hear furious Voices, and I know that Leila is begging to have me sent to Switzerland. Let her beg. Switzerland is not far from England, and in England----
Here I pause to reflect a moment. How is this thing possible? Can I love to members of the Other Sex? And if such is the Case, how can I go on with my Life? Better far to end it now, than to perchance marry one, and find the other still in my heart. The terrable thought has come to me that I am fickel.
Fickel or polygamus--which?
Dear Dairy, I have not been a good girl. My New Year's Resolutions have gone to airey nothing.
The way they went was this: I had settled down to a quiet evening, spent with his beloved picture which I had clipped from a newspaper. (Adrian's. I had not as yet met the other.) And, as I sat in my chamber, I grew more and more desolate. I love Life, although pessamistic at times. And it seemed hard that I should be there, in exile, while my Sister, only 2O months older, was jumping at her chance below.
At last I decided to try on one of Sis's frocks and see how I looked in it. I though, if it looked all right, I might hang over the stairs and see what I then scornfully termed "His Nibs." Never again shall I so call him.
I got an evening gown from Sis's closet, and it fitted me quite well, although tight at the waste for me, owing to Basket Ball. It was also to low, so that when I had got it all hooked about four inches of my LINGERIE showed. As it had been hard as anything to hook, I was obliged to take the scizzors and cut off the said LINGERIE. The result was good, although very DECOLLTE. I have no bones in my neck, or practicaly so.
And now came my moment of temptation. How easy to put my hair up on my head, and then, by the servant's staircase, make my way to the seen below!
I, however, considered that I looked pale, although Mature. I looked at least nineteen. So I went into Sis's room, which was full of evening wraps but emty, and put on a touch of rouge. With that and my eyebrows blackend, I would not have known myself, had I not been certain it was I and no other.
I then made my way down the Back Stairs.
Ah me, Dear Dairy, was that but a few hours ago? Is it but a short time since Mr. Beresford was sitting at my feet, thinking me a DEBUTANTE, and staring soulfully into my very heart? Is it but a matter of minutes since Leila found us there, and in a manner which revealed the true feeling she has for me, ordered me to go upstairs and take off Maidie Mackenzie's gown?
(Yes, it was not Leila's after all. I had forgotten that Maidie had taken her room. And except for pulling it somewhat at the waste, I am sure I did not hurt the old thing.)
I shall now go to bed and dream. Of which one I know not. My heart is full. Romanse has come at last into my dull and dreary life. Below, the revelers have gone. The flowers hang their herbacious heads. The music has flowed away into the river of the past. I am alone with my Heart.
JANUARY 14TH. How complacated my Life grows, Dear Dairy! How full and yet how incomplete! How everything begins and nothing ends!
HE is in town.
I discovered it at breakfast. I knew I was in for it, and I got down early, counting on mother breakfasting in bed. I would have felt better if father had been at home, because he understands somwhat the way They keep me down. But he was away about an order for shells (not sea; war), and I was to bear my chiding alone. I had eaten my fruit and serial, and was about to begin on sausage, when mother came in, having risen early from her slumbers to take the decorations to the Hospital.
"So here you are, wreched child!" she said, giving me one of her coldest looks. "Barbara, I wonder if you ever think whither you are tending."
I ate a sausage.
What, Dear Dairy, was there to say?
"To disobey!" she went on. "To force yourself on the atention of Mr. Beresford, in a borowed dress, with your eyelashes blackend and your face painted----"
"I should think, mother," I observed, "that if he wants to marry into this family, and is not merely being dragged into it, that he ought to see the worst at the start." She glired, without speaking. "You know," I continued, "it would be a dreadfull thing to have the Ceramony performed and everything to late to back out, and then have ME Sprung on him. It wouldn't be honest, would it?"
"Barbara!" she said in a terrable tone. "First disobedience, and now sarcasm. If your father was only here! I feel so alone and helpless."
Her tone cut me to the Heart. After all she was my own mother, or at least maintained so, in spite of numerous questions enjendered by our lack of resemblence, moral as well as physicle. But I did not offer to embrase her, as she was at that moment poring out her tea. I hid my misery behind the morning paper, and there I beheld the fated vision. Had I felt any doubt as to the state of my afections it was settled then. My Heart leaped in my bosom. My face sufused. My hands trembled so that a piece of sausage slipped from my fork. HIS PICTURE LOOKED OUT AT ME WITH THAT WELL REMEMBERED GAZE FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE MORNING PAPER.
Oh, Adrian, Adrian!
Here in the same city as I, looking out over perchance the same newspaper to perchance the same sun, wondering--ah, what was he wondering?
I was not even then, in that first Rapture, foolish about him. I knew that to him I was probably but a tender memory. I knew, to, that he was but human and probably very concieted. On the other hand, I pride myself on being a good judge of character, and he carried Nobility in every linament. Even the obliteration of one eye by the printer could only hamper but not destroy his dear face.
"Barbara," mother said sharply. "I am speaking. Are you being sulkey?"
"Pardon me, mother," I said in my gentlest tones. "I was but dreaming." And as she made no reply, but rang the bell visciously, I went on, pursuing my line of thought. "Mother, were you ever in Love?"
"Love! What sort of Love?"
I sat up and stared at her.
"Is there more than one sort?" I demanded.
"There is a very silly, schoolgirl Love," she said, eyeing me, "that people outgrow and blush to look back on."
"Do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Do you blush to look back on it?"
Mother rose and made a sweeping gesture with her right arm.
"I wash my hands of you!" she said. "You are impertanent and indelacate. At your age I was an inocent child, not troubleing with things that did not concern me. As for Love, I had never heard of it until I came out."
"Life must have burst on you like an explosion," I observed. "I suppose you thought that babies----"
"Silense!" mother shreiked. And seeing that she persisted in ignoring the real things of
Life while in my presence, I went out, cluching the precious paper to my Heart.
JANUARY 15TH. I am alone in my BOUDOIR (which is realy the old schoolroom, and used now for a sowing room).
My very soul is sick, oh Dairy. How can I face the truth? How write it out for my eyes to see? But I must. For SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. The play is failing.
The way I discovered it was this. Yesterday, being short of money, I sold my amethist pin to Jane, one of the housemaids, for two dollars, throwing in a lace coller when she seemed doubtful, as I had a special purpose for useing funds. Had father been at home I could have touched him, but mother is diferent.
I then went out to buy a frame for his picture, which I had repaired by drawing in the other eye, although licking the Fire and passionate look of the originle. At the shop I was compeled to show it, to buy a frame to fit. The clerk was almost overpowered.
"Do you know him?" she asked, in a low and throbing tone.
"Not intimitely," I replied.
"Don't you love the Play?" she said. "I'm crazy about it. I've been back three times. Parts of it I know off by heart. He's very handsome. That picture don't do him justise."
I gave her a searching glanse. Was it posible that, without any acquaintance with him whatever, she had fallen in love with him? It was indeed. She showed it in every line of her silly face.
I drew myself up hautily. "I should think it would be very expencive, going so often," I said, in a cool tone.
"Not so very. You see, the play is a failure, and they give us girls tickets to dress the house. Fill it up, you know. Half the girls in the store are crazy about Mr. Egleston."
My world shuddered about me. What--fail! That beautiful play, ending "My darling, my woman"? It could not be. Fate would not be cruel. Was there no apreciation of the best in Art? Was it indeed true, as Miss Everett has complained, although not in these exact words, that the Theater was only supported now by chorus girls' legs, dancing about in uter ABANDON?
With an expression of despair on my features, I left the store, carrying the Frame under my arm.
One thing is certain. I must see the play again, and judge it with a criticle eye. IF IT IS WORTH SAVING, IT MUST BE SAVED.
The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart Page 161
