“I’m not sure,” she said relentlessly.
“Would you like to discover beyond a shadow of doubt?” Frank’s voice was light. But she felt the muscles in his body tighten, and he seemed to poise as he awaited her reply.
“Yes,” she said faintly. “But … didn’t you mention … a dark room?”
“I did,” he returned promptly. “But I had an idea Trixie queered that in the car.”
“Have you … had so many women?” Barbara asked unevenly.
Frank hesitated. “Suppose I said yes?” he asked.
“Then I’d be glad,” Barbara told him simply. “I’d say it was a good thing one of us had experience. I’m so woefully ignorant,” she wailed.
“I know,” he said quietly. Then he stood up and pulled at her arm. “Get up,” he commanded.
Barbara trembled as she stood before him. “What … what are you going to do?” she queried faintly.
“I’m going to look for that dark room,” he told her. He took both her hands in his and led her toward a dark entrance. She followed him confidingly. The sounds of merriment from within came to her faintly. All the others seemed far away … as though they were in another world.
There were only she and Frank. In a dimly lit hallway, thickly carpeted and with paneled walls. He led her gently to a door and stopped before it with his finger on his lips. They listened intently but could hear no sound from within.
He smiled as he turned the knob to enter. “One never knows what one will run into during a party like this,” he muttered. “It’s always best to make sure before venturing into a dark bedroom.”
He turned on the switch as he spoke … then uttered a quick exclamation as he switched the light off again abruptly. Barbara caught only a blurred impression of the scene within the room as his exclamation was echoed by a shrill shriek from the corner.
Frank pulled her from the room and shut the door firmly. “Damn fools!” he ejaculated, wiping the perspiration from his brow. “They ought to have sense enough to lock the door.”
Barbara smiled faintly as she followed him down the hall to a stairway. In her heart was the knowledge that yesterday she would have fainted had she turned on the light to see such a scene. But yesterday seemed so far away. She found that she wasn’t a bit shocked now. Only amused. It seemed so much a part of this strange new life she was being introduced to.
At the top of the stairs Frank made an abrupt turn to the right. “We’ll go in my room,” he said. “It’s locked and I know we won’t be disturbed.”
Barbara waited quietly while he inserted a key in the lock and opened the door. Then she entered behind him while he turned on a top light. It was a large room. Magnificently decorated in somber browns, and furnished with massive oak chairs, tables, and huge four-poster bed.
Frank stepped into a closet while she stood in the center of the floor with a peculiar smile on her lips. He carried a silk robe over his arm when he reappeared.
“You’ll want to take that tight thing off,” he suggested. He handed her the robe, and smiled as she looked at it doubtfully. “I’ll go in the other room and get into something else while you change,” he said tactfully. “The bathroom’s right there,” he added as she smiled her thanks.
Barbara carried the robe to the bed and laid it there carefully. Then she sat down and stared at the floor. A faint voice persisted in whispering that this was not Barbara Dorn. This could not be Barbara Dorn! Sitting on a huge bed in a man’s room … preparing to disrobe in anticipation of his return. It was preposterous to think of Barbara Dorn doing that!
Of course it was not she. Another soul had slipped into her physical body and taken full possession. This was no more Barbara Dorn than were any of the girls who danced and laughed downstairs. This girl who sat upon the bed was merely a chip tossed up by the swirling madness which was Mardi Gras. This bit of flotsam had no connection whatsoever with Barbara Dorn.
Her mind played with the fantasy as she kicked off her shoes and drew down her stockings. She felt giddy and shaken as she stood up to pull the Quaker costume off over her head. She looked at this stranger as she dropped the costume to the floor. The body was the same. Of course! She nodded emphatically at the reflection in the mirror. The physical envelope was unchanged.
The only change was within. Her eyes gave evidence of that. They were grave and serene. Barbara Dorn would be frightened and furtive in a like situation. But this stranger who inhabited her body was not frightened.
Barbara slipped the robe over her shoulders and threw back the covers on the bed. Frank came through the door as she stretched out comfortably. She smiled a welcome at him as he switched out the light. He had changed to a fanciful lounging robe. She felt quite certain he wore nothing beneath the robe.
He sat on the edge of the bed gently, and touched her brow with his fingertips. An indescribable thrill enveloped her. She took his hand and moved it down to her lips so she might kiss it passionately … then downward to the tip of her bosom which ached for his caresses.
Frank murmured endearments as he kissed her eyes … and her lips. She let the robe fall back from her body. It seemed that her soul floated off in a vaporous mist as his lips touched her shoulders, her neck, the swell of her breast.
Twenty-two years of unspent passion arose to assail her. Her breasts throbbed, and she clutched his head to her roughly.
It was more than she could stand. Frank knew so well what must be done. She writhed and her desire tormented her. It was menacing. She shrank from the shameful implication. An accusing finger was pointed at her scornfully in the dark room.
Then she expired. The livingness that had been Barbara Dorn fled into the night and left the shell of her body. Her muscles relaxed as she drew in a breath shudderingly. Then she was limp.
Frank hesitated. He lifted his head and spoke softly. “My dear?”
She did not reply.
“Barbara!” He shook her slightly. Her form moved limply at his touch.
“My God!” Frank moved to lay his cheek over her heart. He was choking with a strange fear.
Her heart beat irregularly. He shook her shoulder and covered her face with kisses. She lay quiescent, only her faint breathing attesting that she lived.
“My God!” he muttered again. “She’s passed out like a ship going over the horizon,” he said aloud.
Speaking his thoughts aloud seemed to arouse him to the necessity of the moment. He jumped up and ran to turn on the light. Then he hesitated and turned back to look at Barbara before opening the door. She lay upon her back with arms outstretched. Her eyes were closed, her face dead-white, but strangely composed.
He ran back to the bed and drew the covers over her. Then hurried from the room pursued by the phantom of fear.
He found Ethel at once, and sent her to Barbara while he called a physician.
Barbara was in the front seat of Frank’s car when she returned to consciousness. She sighed audibly, yawned, and sat erect. “Where am I?” she asked quickly.
Ethel sat beside her in the front seat. Frank was driving. “You poor lamb,” Ethel muttered. “You’ve been in a hell of a shape.”
“What happened?” Barbara looked about wildly. They were driving slowly along a tree-shadowed lane. Barbara was fully dressed.
“We’re out driving in an effort to sober you up before we took you home,” Ethel told her quickly. “How much do you remember?” she asked curiously.
“Oh! I don’t know.” Barbara shuddered again. “Everything’s mixed up,” she said brokenly. “Crazy dreams with what’s really happened. I’m afraid I can’t really separate the real from the dreams. I don’t remember anything clearly since this afternoon in that apartment on Rampart Street. What time is it, and what’s happened?”
“It’s about one o’clock in the morning, and plenty’s happened,” Ethel told her succinctly. “You broke up the party when you played dead. We had a doctor out and everything. Lord God! I thought you were a goner. But he sa
id it was just overexcitement and too much wine and punch. We’ve been driving with you for an hour.”
“Thank God you’re all right,” Frank said fervently. He drew in a deep breath and squared his shoulders.
Barbara looked at him quickly. “You’re all mixed up in my dream,” she told him. “You’ll have to help me straighten it all out.”
“Gladly,” he said humbly. “But let’s wait until to-morrow. I’m going to take you home now and have Ethel put you to bed. If my hair doesn’t turn gray over this night’s episode I’ll be surprised.”
“I’m sorry I caused so much trouble,” Barbara murmured pitiably.
“Don’t you worry about that, honey.” Ethel patted her shoulder comfortingly. “We hit too fast a pace for you. All my fault. Don’t worry your head about it one moment. Everything’s all right that ends all right.”
“But it must have been a terrible experience for you,” Barbara protested. “I’m terribly ashamed of breaking up the party.”
“To hell with the party,” Frank interrupted. “It needed to be broken up. You just sit quietly and I’ll have you home in a jiffy. We’ll all laugh about it tomorrow, but I’m still too frightened to do much laughing.”
All three were silent as he drove on toward the Brinkley home. Frank was wondering how much Barbara remembered: and Ethel was wondering exactly what had taken place in his room before he called her: and Barbara was wondering how much of her confused memories were reality.
None of them spoke again until the car stopped in front of Ethel’s home. Ethel leaped out quickly with a great sigh. “The perfect end to a hectic evening,” she murmured. She took Barbara’s hand to help her alight.
Frank came around the car quickly. “Do you feel faint?” he asked tenderly. “Can you stand all right?” He slipped his arm about her waist.
“I feel fine,” Barbara assured him. “I’ve always thought I’d feel terrible after doing this for the first time … but I don’t … really. I’m not a bit ashamed.”
“I’m so glad,” Frank said quickly. “I’d never cease calling myself a dog if you did feel badly about what happened.” The three of them moved slowly to the gate.
Barbara stopped there and turned to Frank with uplifted arms. “Kiss me,” she said. “I want to thank you for being kind and … and for—everything.”
She clasped her arms about his neck and he kissed her tenderly. “This is only the beginning,” he told her quietly. “You were too drunk to-night. But another day it’ll be different.”
“Well, come on!” Ethel called impatiently. “You two have done plenty for one night.”
“All right.” Frank laughed exultantly. He was just coming to a realization of how much Barbara meant to him. “You need plenty of sleep after to-night,” he said to Barbara. “Good night … and I’ll be seeing you.”
“Good night,” she called after him softly. Then she turned to Ethel as Frank’s car roared off into the night.
None of the three had noticed the dark figure of a man hidden by the shadow of the hedge. A figure which stumbled away uncertainly as the door closed behind Barbara and Ethel.
Chapter Eight
“There! Now I guess you see what I meant!” Hattie sniffed three times, audibly, and glared about the coach crowded with merrymakers bound for the New Orleans Mardi Gras.
“Shh,” Robert said desperately. “They’ll all hear you.”
“And little difference that makes to me,” Hattie commented with asperity. She sat a little more erect on the plush seat, and her nose wriggled furiously.
“But they’re all right,” Robert protested in an undertone. “They’re all just happy and having a good time.”
“Humph. Fiddlesticks! All right, indeed. The commonest sort of people. Laughing at silly jokes and chattering together like a pack of monkeys. I must say that I’m beginning to have more respect for that Darwin man after seeing and listening to this crowd.”
“I know,” Robert muttered resignedly. “You’ve been telling me that ever since we left home. I do wish we’d hurry and get to New Orleans.”
“Like as not you’ll wish you hadn’t gotten there so soon when we do arrive,” Hattie told him. “No manner of knowing what you’ll find Barbara doing if this is a sample of the sort who go to Mardi Gras.”
“Well, I think it’s nice the way all of them seem so friendly and happy,” Robert muttered defiantly.
“Nice? Humph!” Hattie sniffed again. “It’s not the sort I’d choose for company,” she commented acidly. “I just want to point out to you that I told you this was the sort of people who go to carnivals like this.”
“Well, you did choose them,” Robert said sulkily. “You didn’t have to come if you didn’t want to. I didn’t ask you to.”
“Didn’t have to come indeed!” Hattie bristled anew. “As though I don’t know my duty when it’s plain as the nose on my face.”
Robert made no answer. He turned to stare out the window, fiercely refraining from telling his Cousin Hattie that anything as plain as the nose on her face would be very plain indeed. His soul seemed to have died within him as he strove to repress his impatience at the snail-like pace of the train.
“And I’ve never been one to turn my back on my duty,” Hattie continued complacently. “If I do say it myself as shouldn’t. When you came in with that hangdog expression on your face this morning and admitted that you were utterly lost to all sense of self-respect and had decided to follow that gadabout girl to New Orleans, why I said to myself, I says: ‘Hattie. There’s your duty. No matter how distasteful it may be. You can’t desert your uncle’s son at a time like this. Your duty’s plain to be seen. You’ll simply have to lay your own feelings aside and do what’s your plain duty.’ That’s what I said to myself this morning,” she ended triumphantly.
“I know,” Robert muttered. “You’ve told me half a dozen times.”
“Simply that I want you to understand that it’s for your sake that I’m coming. Goodness knows what the ladies in the Aid Society will think of me for traipsing off to a sinful carnival like this. But that simply doesn’t matter, for I was never one to shirk my duty.”
Robert stared miserably out the window and tried not to listen to his Cousin Hattie’s shrill voice. His face was haggard, and it seemed to have new lines which had come since the day Barbara had thrown her ring at him and fled to the house.
He had not seen Barbara since that afternoon. He had tried to steel his heart against the overmastering love which cried out for her. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours during the days which had elapsed since that scene in her yard.
Hattie didn’t know that. She knew nothing of the long tramps he had taken each night after lying upon his bed and tossing in agony for hours, seeking nepenthe in sleep which would not come. She knew nothing of the fitfully tortured dreams which had walked with him each day as he sought to go about the work on the farm as though Babs did not matter.
Cousin Hattie had seen none of these things. She had sniffed and said, “Good riddance of bad rubbish.” Robert had tried to believe that. He had said it over and over to himself. But it simply was no use. Babs’ dear face was before him continually. He felt he would go mad with the agony of waiting to see her again. Then, Sunday night he heard that she had taken the train for New Orleans that day.
That news had done a queer thing to him. Somehow, it had served to sweep the bitterness from his heart. With the knowledge that she was gone, something had died. He had slept Sunday night. Only to dream of Barbara through the long hours. She had come to him in many guises in his dream. In fantastic costume, masked, laughing gleefully, one of a throng of carefree spirits laughing their way through the festival of Mardi Gras.
Monday morning he had abruptly decided that he must seek her in New Orleans. He had the Brinkleys’ address written on a sheet of paper, and he had wired a friend to find him a room and meet him at the station. The train was due to arrive at ten o’clock.
He moved
restlessly and looked at his watch. Half an hour yet. Hattie’s voice came to him again. Barbara’s name impinged upon his ears and drew his attention:
“… what I say is that you’re a fool to come chasing after Barbara like this. She’s a minx, and she insulted me to my very face. Then, upping and running off all alone to the Lord knows what follies in this lustful madness of a foolish festival that they try to atone for by calling it religious. Religious indeed! Humph! Shameful show of sex and sin, I’d say.” She rolled the words on her tongue as though they were sweet morsels and she was loath to let them go.
“But what do you really know about it?” Robert asked her angrily. “That’s just your idea.”
“Well, I guess I know a thing or two.” Hattie sniffed haughtily. “Like I’ve been telling you, if this is a fair sample you can see what a whole cityful will be like.” Her glance swept the offensive spectacle of a coach crowded with artisans and laborers who had gleefully thrown off the cares of their workaday lives to disport themselves in the manner of children on an outing.
“I wish you’d quit griping,” Robert muttered under his breath. “It’s bad enough to have you along without having to listen to you all the time.”
“What’s that? What’s that you say, young man?”
“Oh, I just said I wish you’d wait till you can see for yourself before you condemn the whole festival,” Robert said aloud. “It’s not fair to judge before you know.”
“Humph! Well, I know about that young lady I’m judging,” Hattie said sternly. “It’s the evil call of the flesh that’s taken her from you. The voice of the tempter whispering in her ear of pleasures of lust and wickedness.”
“Now, that’s enough!” Robert turned toward her firmly. His eyes flashed angrily and his lips were tightly set. “Don’t say one more word against Babs,” he said savagely. “I love her. You don’t know what love is. She’s sweet and good and pure. I’ll simply get up and leave you and not come back if you persist in maligning her.” He turned back to the window and his shoulders were defiantly rigid.
Mardi Gras Madness Page 7
