Read the book: «Clever Betsy», page 10

CHAPTER XX
BETSY’S APPEAL

True to her promise, Betsy stayed but two days in Boston, and Mrs. Bruce, having had a very good time in her absence, was graciously pleased to let bygones be bygones when she returned.

“Was your shopping successful?” she asked.

“Yes, we did real well,” was the reply. “I didn’t know there was so many good ready-made things folks could get.”

Mrs. Bruce smiled leniently.

“Rather awful things,” she said, “but I suppose they did very well for your friend from the country.”

“Yes, she’ll look real good in ’em after she’s fitted to a few alterations. Miss Maynard’s been gettin’ some ready-made ones.”

“She has?” ejaculated Mrs. Bruce with interest.

“Yes; they showed ’em to me, some of ’em, when I went to Mrs. Nixon’s; and they’re elegant.”

“Oh, yes; with Miss Maynard’s pocket-book, one can find very good things; and since they’re coming here for the rest of the season, she doesn’t need much. You say Mrs. Nixon wired for the rooms?”

“Yes, right off; and they think they’ll get here Saturday.”

That evening Irving Bruce, descrying Betsy stooping over her sweet-pea bed, joined her.

“How is Miss Vincent?” he inquired.

Betsy rose and regarded him.

“Set a spell,” he continued, drawing her down upon a garden-seat.

“I haven’t got anything to tell you, Mr. Irving.”

“Nonsense,” remarked the young man easily. “Don’t you suppose I know that you went to town to get clothes for somebody? Mrs. Bruce told me that. Of course it was Rosalie. Whose gift? Yours or Mr. Derwent’s?”

“Mr. Derwent’s,” responded Betsy after a reluctant pause.

“I hope they are proper for the seashore.”

“They’re real simple, and pretty, and good; just like her.”

“Tell me what you bought.”

Irving brought his sun-burned face close to Betsy’s and hung his hand over the back of the seat close to her shoulder.

Betsy pressed her lips together.

“If you don’t I’ll hug you, and Mrs. Bruce is up there on the piazza, looking.”

“Mr. Irving, behave yourself!”

Betsy essayed to rise, and was brought back swiftly by the strong hand.

“I can see her in everything if you’ll just describe it.”

“Well,” said Betsy reluctantly, casting a glance toward the piazza, “we got her a black lace.”

“Too old, I should think.”

“No, no, ’tain’t,” Betsy forgot her reluctance in defense. “It’s sort o’ half low neck and has fluffy things on it – real pretty.”

“What else?”

“A white lace one – Oh, she does look just like an angel in it, Mr. Irving!”

The speaker suddenly remembered herself, and her lips snapped together.

Irving frowned slightly. “Well, Mr. Derwent is blowing himself.”

“He gave me five hundred dollars, Mr. Irving, and told me to fit that child out!” Betsy could not resist imparting her joyous news. “Oh,” – she heaved a long, eloquent sigh, – “I’ve had one good time, I tell you! I wanted to stay longer, but I promised Mrs. Bruce; and the everyday things she can get herself. She’s smart, and knows that the plainest things look best on her; because the Creator’s made her so she don’t need any trimmin’ up. I went to Mrs. Nixon’s house, and there they were dressin’ Miss Maynard out of a bottomless purse; but I’ll match my girl against her.”

Irving, attentive, watched the narrow face glow.

“And where did you say Rosalie is living?”

“I didn’t say,” replied Betsy with a return of caution.

“Not at Mrs. Nixon’s, I suppose.”

“Well, I guess not. While I was examinin’ Miss Maynard’s finery, I was glad I didn’t have a pain in my head so that they could see my thoughts. If they’d known Mr. Derwent’s money was buyin’ another girl’s outfit they’d ’a’ needed a smellin’ bottle. You know, Mr. Irving, I thought perhaps Miss Maynard comin’ into that fortune would ’a’ liked to help Rosalie in some way. It really surprised me ’cause she didn’t.”

“Miss Maynard’s head is in the clouds for the present. Very likely when she comes to earth she will be more interested in other people.”

Betsy looked at the speaker affectionately. “You always was a generous boy,” she said. “Never could be hired to knock anybody.”

“I’m going to knock you, right off this seat, if you don’t tell me without any beating about the bush, where Rosalie Vincent is. I expect to go to Boston in a few days. I might help her choose her hats.”

Betsy’s eyes met his earnestly. “Now, look here. You’ve been as good as gold ever since we left the lake. You haven’t asked me a question.”

“That’s why you ought to answer me now, instantly.”

“I’m not goin’ to tell you.” Betsy spoke deliberately. “Rosalie’s got to make her own way in the world. Mr. Derwent knows that outside appearances count for a lot in her line o’ business, and he’s givin’ her this outfit, just as he’d give a boy a little capital to start him. She’s goin’ to try an experiment, and I ain’t goin’ to say anything about it. It’s an idea o’ my own, and if it turns out all right, I’ll believe my good angel put it into my head; but if folks like you – young men – play the fool, it won’t turn out well; and then I’ll know it was a caper o’ my bad angel. You needn’t scowl and look as if you’d eat up any other man who looks at her. You’re the one o’ the lot I’m most afraid of, and you’re very likely to see her.”

Irving sprang to his feet as if he had been shot.

“Betsy, have you – is it possible – ” he nearly choked in his excitement – “have you found her some place on the stage – vaudeville?”

Miss Foster, after her first jump, swallowed, and looked at him in exasperation.

“Will you sit down and not scare a body into a fit?”

“Have you, I say!” he demanded fiercely. “I’ll see Derwent to-night if he’s had anything to do with this.”

“For the land’s sake, Irving Bruce, you’re actin’ like a natural-born fool – but I love you for it!” The gray eyes sparkled. “Sit down on this bench.”

He obeyed, but his eyes still devoured her.

“I can’t leave Mrs. Bruce, can I? If Rosalie went on the stage I’d have to go with her, wouldn’t I? Do act as if you had some common sense.”

“You frightened me,” said Irving.

“Well, you nearly gave me heart disease.”

Irving did not smile. His expression made it difficult for his companion to proceed; but there was no time like the present. She seldom had opportunity to talk with the young man alone, and Robert was amusing his hostess on the porch.

“As I said a minute ago, Mr. Irving, you’re a generous boy, and always were. You’re likely to see Rosalie Vincent sooner or later, and you’ll be put to the test. You know in your inmost heart that you don’t care a thing about her except the way you would a pretty picture, or statue, that you’d come across. You don’t know her at all in the first place, so any attention you pay her would be just for your own selfish fun, and you’ve said so much to me about her, that I’m afraid you will seek her if you get the chance – just for her beauty, poor child.”

Irving’s thoughts had flown back to the canyon, and a train of memories stirred him.

“She will attract a great many besides me,” he said. “If there’s ever any need of shielding her, I sha’n’t stand aside, you may be sure.”

“You’re the only one she needs shielding from, Mr. Irving.” Betsy spoke with slow, gentle emphasis. “I tell Rosalie to be mejum, but she don’t know how. It isn’t in her. I’d feel meaner’n pusley to say this to you, if ’twan’t meaner not to. She’s set you up, the way a girl will, in a special niche of her heart. How she come to I can’t see, ’cause she never talked with you more’n once or twice. She don’t know that I notice this, but she’s shown it a number o’ times the last two days. Now she hasn’t had a chance yet to know men worth knowin’; and if you happen to meet her anywhere, and just treat her pleasant but real formal, she’ll get over this fancy – it’s all just a part of her poetry and the notions she lives among all the time, in her own thoughts. It don’t amount to anything, now; but it could if you acted selfish. I told you before that I love her, Mr. Irving. She hasn’t got a person to take care of her but me. I’m glad she’s a girl all out o’ the question for you, because Mrs. Bruce would never think she was good enough, and would make her unhappy; and as long as she is out o’ the question I ain’t afraid to ask the son o’ your father and mother, the two finest people I ever knew in my life, to keep away from her; not flatter her; not show her any attention. She’s as modest as a daisy, and got no more worldly experience than one. Lots o’ men admire that kind a little while, and then tread on it without even noticin’ that they have.”

Irving during this speech had sunk his hands in his pockets, and his eyes were fixed on his outstretched pumps. Betsy regarded him anxiously through a moment of silence.

“Do you ever wish we were back in the canyon?” he asked. “I do.”

“Mr. Irving!” she ejaculated. “I don’t believe you’ve heard a word I’ve been saying.”

“I have; but I doubt most of it. You’re in love with me yourself, Betsy. That’s what’s the matter with you.”

“H’m. Perhaps I might be if I could forget how cross you were when you were teethin’ and how you tore your clothes, and got all stuck up with jam. Your mother trusted me perfectly. Whenever I carried you to her and said, ‘Please spank him, ma’am,’ she always did it without a question.” Betsy’s tone was vainglorious.

Irving threw back his head, and his ringing laugh caused Mrs. Bruce to look wonderingly down the garden.

“An absolute monarchy, eh?” he responded. “And you have the habit so, you want to tyrannize over me still?”

“Don’t leave me with the feelin’ that you want to shirk out of it by foolin’,” pursued Betsy, refusing to smile, and rising, conscious of Mrs. Bruce’s gaze.

Irving rose also and threw his arm tenderly around her thin shoulders as they moved toward the house.

She tried to escape, but the gentle vise held.

“You’ve made me feel very sentimental, referring as you have to our past, Betsy,” he said emotionally. “Know’st thou these verses, beginning —

 
“‘There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning days’ (and teething nights!)”
 

“Please, Mr. Irving!”

With a desperate wriggle, Betsy escaped, and moved swiftly around toward the back door of the cottage.

“Did she refuse you?” called Nixie, as his friend stretched portentously, and then came on up the steps.

“Absolutely.”

“It must be a habit of hers,” remarked Mrs. Bruce. “Captain Salter has been returning to the charge for years, so I’ve heard lately.”

“Great work!” declared Nixie with zest. “He looks like a sea-dog that can hold on. I must have some fun with the great and only Betsy.”

“If you do,” remarked Irving lazily, “I’ll have some fun with you that will make you an interesting invalid for the rest of the summer.”

“Highty-tighty!” exclaimed Nixie. “I believe sonny is in earnest, Mrs. Bruce.”

“Doubtless,” she returned, with some bitterness. “Betsy has a true knight.”

“I am in earnest,” said Irving quietly. “Betsy’s private affairs are as much to be respected as your mother’s. Hands off.”

“I spoke to her about the captain once,” said Mrs. Bruce. “He’d been as much as making love to her under my very eyes, and I put some innocent question, but – ” the speaker shrugged her shoulders – “she snubbed me.”

“Quite right,” said Irving promptly.

“The man’s crazy,” declared Mrs. Bruce, “if he thinks Betsy could be persuaded to leave us, and go and drudge for him. Of course that’s all he wants her for; and she is clever. She knows it.”

“I don’t agree with you,” said Irving mildly. “Old Hiram’s in love with her. To his eyes she looks just the same as she did when they went to school together.”

“He shall have her then!” ejaculated Nixie enthusiastically. “I shall make it my pleasure, in slight, unostentatious ways, to throw them together.”

“Wretch!” exclaimed Mrs. Bruce. “Destroyer of homes! Do you want to give me nervous prostration?”

“Did you ever try to throw Betsy anywhere she didn’t want to go?” inquired Irving.

“That’s my comfort,” groaned Mrs. Bruce. “She looked at Captain Salter as if she could eat him when he told us what he had named the boat.”

Nixie laughed. “She’s a character, isn’t she? I’m not far from in love with her myself.”

CHAPTER XXI
A RAINY EVENING

The various and sundry hatchets which had been brandished in the mental atmosphere between the natural guardians of those two heroes, Irving Bruce and Robert Nixon, were all decently buried by the time the Yellowstone party were about to be reunited at Fairport.

Mrs. Bruce had quite the glow of a hostess as she placed flowers in the rooms of the expected ones; and Mrs. Nixon had invited the Bruce household, of which her son was to continue to be one, to dine with them at the inn on the evening of their arrival.

They had a cosy corner of the dining-room to themselves when the time came.

Helen Maynard looked charming in an evening gown of pale pink chiffon. The quiet little chrysalis familiar to their Yellowstone stage had yielded up a butterfly upon which Mrs. Nixon looked with pride as the work of her hands, noting with satisfaction the admiring curiosity in the eyes of the three men.

Even Helen’s demureness was not proof against the radiance of her content to-night as they took their places at the table. She was seated between the two young men, whose coats of tan provoked much comment from the newcomers.

When they had taken their places, Robert looked about with his usual cheerfulness.

“All present or accounted for but Hebe,” he declared. “It seems as if she ought to materialize and bring us our soup.”

Irving gazed at him. “You saw nothing unfitting, then, in that office for her?”

The speaker’s manner was always quiet, but his boon companion recognized the tone.

“Brute of my heart!” ejaculated the latter, “‘I would not live alway,’ but a little longer, please! You’ll pardon the natural yearnings of an affectionate nature. I can’t help missing lovely Hebe.”

“There is a more familiar face than Miss Vincent’s that we are missing,” said Helen. She turned to Mrs. Bruce. “How is Clever Betsy?”

“Very well indeed, thank you,” returned that lady. “She is evidently more than grateful to be on her native heath again. I think I never knew Betsy in such good spirits as she has shown the past week.”

“I noticed it in Boston,” said Helen. “When she came to see us she seemed so happy. She said the best part of any trip, no matter how delightful, was getting home again.”

While Helen Maynard spoke, she had a habit of turning at short intervals to Mr. Derwent as if to include him in all she said; and such was his ability to understand her, that his eyes sent her an acknowledgment even when there was no occasion for him to speak.

This time, however, he did answer.

“I don’t wonder at Betsy. I like the looks of this place very much myself.”

“And the taste of it,” added Robert, eating his soup with a seaman’s appetite. “This is very good, for a hotel. For myself, I live in a private family, and I pity you all. Mrs. Bruce has a cook with whom I’m liable to elope.”

“I’ll show her off to you some day soon,” said Mrs. Bruce graciously.

Betsy Foster was meanwhile enjoying the unwonted sole possession of the cottage. While she straightened the chaos in the young men’s rooms, a smile was on her lips, and a light of excitement burned in her eyes.

When all was neat within doors and she had eaten her simple supper, she went out on the veranda, and seating herself in the best rocker, rocked, and hummed one of Robert’s most abandoned two-steps.

While she was thus enjoying the dolce far niente of her unobserved evening, a light rain began to fall.

“I don’t know as I’m sorry if it does rain,” she murmured. “It’ll keep ’em in the house, and I want ’em all to be there. I’m sure it’ll please Mr. Derwent.”

While she thus reflected, a square-shouldered, sturdy, masculine figure entered the gate and came up the garden-path.

Betsy showed no surprise at his appearance. The pleasant light continued in her eyes as she arose.

“How do you do, Hiram?” she said, as he came up the steps. “Take the big chair.”

“Well!”

The sea-blue gaze scrutinized her as the guest’s hard hand held hers until she jerked it away with decision.

“Take the big chair,” she repeated.

“Ye’d rather give me that than your hand, eh?” returned Hiram, and he seated himself on the edge of the flexible wicker.

“Sit back, and take comfort,” said Betsy, returning to her rocker.

Captain Salter obeyed, moving cautiously.

“Well, travelin’ does improve folks, they say. I can see you’re improved, Betsy.”

“You thought there was need of it, did you?”

“Well, I should think so! I knew the minute I got your note this afternoon that you was beginnin’ to get more reasonable. To have you do somethin’ real decent like askin’ a feller to come and see you, showed that you was broadenin’ out, Betsy, broadenin’ out. Folks all gone to the inn to dinner, eh?”

“Yes. I thought it would be a good chance for me to hear some o’ the town gossip.”

“’Tis. Real good. It’s all over Fairport that you and me’s goin’ to be married this fall.” Betsy stopped rocking. “The name o’ the boat kind o’ started it up – ”

“You might have known it would, Hiram Salter!” said Betsy accusingly.

“O’ course I did. What d’ye s’pose I named her for?”

“’Twas a mean trick, Hiram!”

Captain Salter changed the blade of grass he was chewing to the other side of his mouth. “Why, certainly,” he responded. “Ye didn’t s’pose I wouldn’t descend to mean tricks, did ye? We heard even when we was goin’ to school that all’s fair in love and war.”

She looked at him for a moment with a baffled gaze, then she spoke.

“I don’t believe a word of it,” she said defiantly. “Everybody that knows me knows I ain’t ever goin’ to marry anybody. I wouldn’t anyway now – after you namin’ the boat. Do you s’pose I’d marry a man that shows right out plain that he’s a tyrant?”

Captain Salter emitted a low rumbling laugh, and sat quiet in his all-embracing chair.

“Tell me what’s doin’ in town,” asked Betsy in a different tone. “How’s Mrs. Pogram gettin’ along without Rosalie?”

“Oh, she’s havin’ a fierce time. She no sooner gets settled with somebody to help her, than Loomis upsets everything with some of his fool doin’s.”

“I’m goin’ to surprise you,” said Betsy, slowly, “more’n you ever was surprised in your life, Hiram.”

“How so? Goin’ to marry me this evenin’?”

“I found Rosalie Vincent out in Yellowstone Park.”

“Pshaw! Ye don’t say so! By the way, Betsy, I was glad o’ those sightly pictures you sent me. Course I s’pose they’re all lies – just advertisin’ – ”

“No, indeed!” exclaimed Betsy eagerly. “You never saw anything so beautiful. I – ”

“Yes,” interrupted Hiram, “I’ve got ’em pinned up on the wall, and, come October, you’ll tell me all about it evenin’s. I cal’late what with Europe and all the globe-trottin’ you’ve done lately, I’m goin’ to have a wife that’ll beat that She-Herod-Sady that told the Arabian Nights, all holler; and what’s more, you won’t ever be afraid ye’ll get yer head cut off; so ye’ll be ahead of her, every way.”

“Hiram,” said Betsy severely, “what do you think o’ my findin’ Rosalie ’way out there?”

“I think ’twas part of her good luck.”

“What good luck has the child ever had?”

“That, and all that come of it.”

Betsy stared, a little disappointed at her admirer’s foreknowledge.

“Has Mr. Irving told you – ” she began.

“Irving hasn’t had a chance to tell me much. That Nixie feller talks to beat the clapper of a bell.”

“But you like him, don’t you, Hiram? He’s an awful nice, kind boy.”

“I guess he will be when I get him trained,” returned Hiram equably. “He’s beginnin’ to understand that I’m the cap’n o’ the Betsy.”

“If you knew how disagreeable that sounds, you’d never say it in my presence!”

Hiram lifted the sea-blue eyes, and fixed hers with their gaze.

“That sentence has got more music in it,” he declared slowly, “than any other in the English language. I’ll be good to you, Betsy – as good as a man knows how to be to a woman. You’ve taken care o’ folks for the last twenty years. I want the job o’ takin’ care o’ you the next twenty.”

He looked very manly as he said it, his strong figure leaning square shoulders toward her. A swift vision chased through her brain of her precious boy henceforth busy in the bank by day, and in society by night; of Mrs. Bruce’s increasing querulousness and exactions, stretching out into an indefinite future.

The captain’s fireside, and herself mistress of his hearth and home, suddenly showed with an attraction she had never felt before; as if it were a haven of shelter from that monotonous other future, with its stern sense of duty, and its occasional high-lights.

“I believe you cal’late to tire me out, Hiram.”

“Shouldn’t wonder,” he returned, leaning back again and biting his blade of grass.

“Why don’t you ask me about Rosalie?” said Betsy. “What do you know?”

“Why, Irving told me that you found her out there, and wheedled some old gent into payin’ her way back East again, and that she was in Boston now, and that you’re keepin’ an eye on her.”

“Old gentleman!” repeated Betsy indignantly. “If you call yourself one, then he is. He’s just about your age.”

“I’m just the right age to be a bridegroom,” responded Captain Salter promptly.

“I hope Mr. Irving didn’t say anything about this before Mr. Nixon. It’s a secret.”

“No. He got a chance at me alone while we was mendin’ a sail. He told me mum was the word. I’ll bet a cookie, Betsy, that now you’ve got Rosalie in Boston you don’t know what to do with her.”

Betsy gave her one-sided smile, and Hiram continued: “Irving says you think a sight o’ the girl; and I’ve been sort o’ cogitatin’ about the whole business; and I finally made up my mind to tell ye that if ye want her to live with us, I haven’t a mite of objection.”

The speaker could see by his lady-love’s countenance that this bait glittered.

“I had thought, Hiram,” she returned ingratiatingly, “that seein’ you and Rosalie are such good friends, you might let Mrs. Bachelder move over to your place; then Rosalie could go there.”

Captain Salter gave his rare, broad smile.

“My! but you’re a good planner, ain’t you!”

“Would you – would you think of it, Hiram?” she asked, with some timidity.

“Not if I wanted to keep real well, I wouldn’t. Now don’t waste time in foolishness, Betsy. I’ve ben gettin’ ready for ye for years, and I am ready. Everything’s taut and ship-shape, and I’ve got a margin that’ll let Rosalie in, easy. We’ll be as cosy as bugs in rugs next winter.”

Captain Salter was an experienced fisherman. The expression on Betsy’s face was such that he believed the bait was swallowed.

“If obstinacy would get folks into the kingdom,” she observed, “your chances for bein’ an archangel would be real good, Hiram Salter.”

He let the reel spin, and the coveted fish dart away with the line.

“I always did hang onto an idea like a puppy to a root,” he said. “It’s kind o’ ingrained in my nature; but you’ll know best, Betsy. You’ve got to be ’tarnally unselfish to somebody in order to be happy; and you think it over. See if ’tain’t about time you changed the place and kept the pain.”

He rose, and Betsy did also. For a wonder she didn’t answer him.

“Good-night,” he said. “It was real clever of you to let me come this evenin’.”

He did not even take her hand at parting. He lifted the shabby yachting-cap and looked at her narrow, inscrutable face. “Good-night,” he said again, and was gone down the garden-path.

Betsy remained some minutes standing in the same position.

“I meant to ask him a hundred questions.” The reflection rose at last from the confusion of her thoughts. “He’s such a gump it makes it hard to talk to him; keeps goin’ back to say the same thing over and over, just like a poll-parrot, till he puts me out so I don’t know what I did want to say to him.”

As she went into the cottage, the picture of the upright figure, and the clean, bronzed, weather-beaten face went with her.

The appealing blue of Rosalie’s eyes seemed to plead with her. “Oh, if I only knew how she’s gettin’ along!” thought Betsy.

Captain Salter was right to smile into the darkness as he plodded down the street. The fish was darting here and there through the unresisting water after its fright, still proudly conscious of its own volition; but the bait was swallowed. The fisherman believed it was a matter of time, now.