Mrs. Nixon leaned toward her brother, who was watching his protégée, pleased in her pleasure.
“Where can Mrs. Bruce be?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” was the reply. “I suppose she has many friends here.”
But Mrs. Nixon doubted if sociability were keeping her friend away.
“I’m afraid she’s pouting somewhere,” she reflected. “I don’t see how I could have done any differently. It wasn’t my fault that she refused to go with Irving. It is annoying to have this incident occur right at the outset of our stay. It would be stupid of her to be offended. Really that Vincent girl from first to last has given us a great deal of annoyance!”
CHAPTER XXIV
THE CLASH
When Robert returned Rosalie to her place near Mrs. Nixon, a number of men who had experienced a clinching of their admiration by the view of her dancing, hastened to approach.
Many of the same people came to the inn, season after season, and Irving knew most of them. Some were Harvard men known to Robert as well, and he at last being alive to Helen’s situation, the group around the two girls soon became extremely animated. Amidst the strife of tongues Irving made his way to Rosalie.
“This is ours?” he said.
As they moved away, she spoke: “I hope I sha’n’t offend any one. I haven’t the least idea what I’ve promised to do.”
In a sort of dream she started in the dance. This was Fairport. In fifteen minutes she could be standing in Mrs. Pogram’s kitchen, where the clock ticked loud above the oilcloth shelf, and Loomis Brown counted the silver she had washed.
What a gulf had lain between this inn, with its airily dressed girls and their cavaliers, and the chill, dusky room where at dawn she had made Loomis’s coffee before he took the early train to Portland. Her hand tightened on Irving’s arm while she recalled the amorous advances of Mrs. Pogram’s brother, and his change, after her repulsion, to anger and a mean revenge.
A long, inaudible breath came quivering to her lips as she glided on under her partner’s perfect guidance. Rosalie loved dancing as only the artistic nature can love it, and the rising and falling waves of music went to her brain like wine.
“Cruel Betsy! Wise Betsy!” she thought.
“Do you remember,” said Irving, “the last time I held you like this?”
“I’m afraid I’m very dull,” she replied. “Did we dance together in some previous incarnation?”
“Don’t you wish to remember, Rosalie?”
“Indeed I do,” she rejoined brightly. “Your dancing couldn’t be improved.”
Irving kept silence. He was entirely aware that he was beginning exactly as Betsy had implored him not to do; but he began to suspect shrewdly that Betsy’s lecture was a shield which had two sides, and that one of them had been presented to this girl. Hadn’t his mentor said that Rosalie – and the latter’s totally changed manner —
“Betsy will end by making a conceited ass out of me,” he reflected, with the relief human nature finds in discovering some one else to blame for its discomfort.
The dance over, he took his partner out on the veranda, where couples were promenading in the damp coolness. He found some chairs in a remote corner.
“These are tolerably dry,” he said. “Shall we sit here?”
“I mustn’t,” she answered.
“Why not? Too cold?”
“Not for me, but too damp for my gown.”
Irving glanced over it in the dusk. “I have an idea that that is something pretty fine,” he said. “I want to see the black one.”
Rosalie colored. “Shame on Betsy!” she said, laughing. “Has she told everybody?”
“No one but me, you may be sure. Betsy knows that I am so perfectly trustworthy, she tells me everything. Did she ever give me a character to you?”
“Yes – No – I don’t know. Let’s go into the house, Mr. Bruce. This gown must last me for years, and years.”
Irving obediently led the girl within doors, where, in a corner of the hall, in lieu of palms, were set Christmas trees in tubs. Into a seat behind these he ushered her.
“I’m afraid my next partner can’t find me here,” she said doubtfully.
“We have the next together.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Mr. Bruce!”
“I know it, Rosalie. I wonder why I venture to call you Rosalie.”
As he spoke Irving took up her fan and began to use it as he gazed at her girlish profile.
“I don’t know,” she returned, a little pulse beating in her throat. “I think, myself, Miss Vincent would sound better.”
“Ah, Betsy!” thought Irving, closing his teeth. “I’ll pay you for this.”
“What need of formality between sworn friends?” he asked.
“I’m starting out on a new life, Mr. Bruce,” she said, turning and looking at him with a direct gaze.
She seemed to him enchanting. He knew, better than she, that she was starting out in a new life; and he begrudged it, strangely. He knew her to be all unconscious as yet of her own charm and power. He dreaded the opening of those clear eyes that as yet were so modest – the windows through which one perceived her innocence. While he was justly angry with Betsy for rousing unthought-of suspicion and caution, he could not deny the justice of her sympathy.
He met the blue gaze with a smile that set the pulse to beating faster.
“You don’t intend to forget old friends for new, do you?” he asked.
“‘There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning days,’
you know. This little audience was enthusiastic over you, and audiences always will be; but —
“‘Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold,’
remember.”
“It’s unkind to laugh at me,” returned the girl, with surprising heat. “You know I have no thought of fame.”
“Rosalie, Rosalie!” he exclaimed and seized her hand protectingly. “I’m not laughing at you. I believe you could have fame if you wish and work; but somehow I don’t want the people to have a right to gaze at you, and listen, and applaud.”
A strange film came over her eyes as she still looked at him. It was as if she withdrew herself as she took her hand away.
“I suppose,” she said, “that people who have always had their own way are subject to such fancies.”
“Betsy said that to you!” he exclaimed, acutely.
She shook her head but did not speak.
“Betsy knows nothing of our compact.” He leaned toward her, and she shrank, but kept her golden head proudly lifted. “Betsy knows nothing of the moment when we stood above the eagles and knew what in life was —
“‘the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.’
Why do I call you Rosalie? Because it means you. It is one of the ‘sweets’ that came to me then – ”
“Mr. Bruce,” the girl interrupted him, “Betsy does know nothing of it; but if she did, Betsy is something more than clever, she is wise. She probably doesn’t read Emerson, but if she did, it would be her own thought that she would put into his words: ‘Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fibre of the human heart.’” The speaker took a firm hold on the sweet voice that threatened to break. “That morning was a time of wine and dreams. I’ve always been a child. I’ve always dreamed dreams; but to-night I am awake, I am starting out in real life, with my eyes open.” Those eyes had been downcast, but now she lifted them again to her companion’s flushed face. “I shall be very glad if you help me – and not hinder.”
“The tough fibre of the human heart,” repeated Irving.
“Yes,” returned the girl. “It is a slow growth, – but it holds.”
A black-coated biped hovering before the Christmas trees, now retreating and now advancing undecidedly, heard his name with relief.
“Is that you, Mr. Ames?” asked Rosalie, rising with decision. The young man addressed doubled around the end of the grove with eager agility.
“I didn’t intend to hide,” laughed the girl.
Irving rose also, and when the two had gone, sank back on the seat, playing absently with the fan he still held.
His thoughts were busy, and his teeth tightly closed.
“What do I want, anyway?” he reflected. “Which is Betsy: a meddlesome busybody, or a guardian angel? I’ll take no chances on the angel proposition. She’s a busybody. I’ll see her to-morrow.”
Irving shook his head threateningly, and a sudden nervous twist of his strong fingers broke a couple of sticks of the pretty fan. He frowned in dismay, and fitted them together in the futile manner inseparable from the occasion.
“Must last her years and years,” he reflected. “Well, it’s up to me to get her another fan, that’s evident.” And with a clearing of the countenance as if this consideration presented distinct consolation, he rose and wandered out of the arbor. “I wonder where Madama is,” he reflected. She had not come into his mind since her refusal of his request drove him to Mrs. Nixon. “How am I to revive her interest in Rosalie?” he wondered as he moved down the hall.
As soon as Mrs. Bruce had made her perfunctory acknowledgment to Rosalie, she slipped from Robert’s side, unnoticed by a culprit absorbed in his own misdemeanors, and with one glance after Irving and Mrs. Nixon, who were returning to the other end of the room, she moved into the hall, and up the stairs of the inn.
She made no effort to curb the hot resentment that possessed her in every fibre. Her one desire was to reach the cause of her suffering, and wreak her sense of outrage upon her.
It was half an hour after Captain Salter’s departure, and Betsy was smiling to herself as she wound the living-room clock. Her thoughts were with Rosalie; confident of the girl’s success, yet half-frightened by the chance of fortune which had united the Yellowstone party to witness her début. She imagined the scene in the spacious living-room of the hotel. Had the rain not fallen, she had meant to ask Hiram to take her over there, that she might look in through the windows and see the dear child standing, the cynosure of all eyes, even if she could not hear her voice.
She felt certain of Mr. Derwent’s satisfaction in her. As a contraband guest at the Canyon Hotel, Rosalie had recited for him in her room, and to-night Betsy’s heart swelled in the realization that he was seeing the first fruits of his generosity.
Doubts of Mrs. Bruce’s approval did sweep occasionally, like filmy clouds, across the clear happiness of her mind; but the importance of Rosalie’s good fortune was paramount, and Betsy was able to sweep them away.
Suddenly she heard the sound of wheels stopping before the gate. She glanced at the clock.
“So early?” she thought. “They can’t be comin’ home now.”
In a minute more some one ran up the steps, and Mrs. Bruce, in a long light wrap, a chiffon scarf falling from her elaborately dressed hair, came swiftly into the room.
Betsy met the flashing eyes in dismay. She hurried to meet her.
“Mercy! Mrs. Bruce – ” she said, nerving herself for some disaster. “How white you are! Has something happened? Or are you ill?”
With her care-taking impulse Betsy tried to remove her mistress’s wrap, but the lady twitched away from her. She had been nursing her wrath to keep it warm, and it was very warm indeed; but something in Betsy’s presence, in the gaze of those honest eyes, threatened to make the enormity of the latter’s offense shrink. Mrs. Bruce was obliged to remember the attitude of Irving’s head as he walked away with Mrs. Nixon, careless of her own opinions or feelings, forgetful of her, – utterly forgetful of her for the first time in her remembrance. Her narrow mind, tenacious of its two idols, – her own importance and her boy, – suffered intensely.
“Stand away from me!” she cried; and Betsy, too dumfounded to move, stared mutely while the vials of Mrs. Bruce’s wrath began to pour out.
“We have been too kind to you. You forget your place. What right had you to do such a thing as to place Rosalie Vincent where she must be accepted as a companion by people of our class? What right had you to interfere so with the pleasure of our summer? Ask yourself why you told me nothing about it. You will say, if you are honest, that it was because you knew I would not approve. I have done everything for the Vincent girl that has been done. I had a right to be consulted, at least. But you, forgetting that you were my servant, went on, managing to ruin our summer, spending, like a fool, your long years’ savings to bring that girl east, and dress her unsuitably, leaving me, and putting me to inconvenience in order to do so, going entirely out of your sphere, and making yourself a special providence. You think yourself so clever! Clever Betsy, indeed! Your head is turned. It is largely our fault!”
She paused, panting. Betsy stood in the same spot, but her anxious face had settled into lines of stony stillness. Only her eyes kept fixed on Mrs. Bruce’s face.
“Speak!” cried the latter, hysterically. “How did you dare do this thing?”
There was another space of silence, then Betsy did speak.
“Is there anything more you want to say about it, Mrs. Bruce?”
The lady shrugged her shoulders angrily, and moving to the divan dropped off her downy wrap.
“I suppose nothing that I can say will pierce through your self-conceit; but I am willing to have any explanation you have to offer. You think you’ve outwitted everybody, and you’ve succeeded in getting your own way; but it’s nothing to be proud of, Betsy – and old age will be coming upon you, and you’ll think of that money a good many times, I can tell you.”
She paused again, and looking up found Betsy’s grave eyes following her. There was another short silence, then Betsy spoke.
“Mrs. Bruce, when you are thinkin’ this evenin’ over, as you will, there’s just one thing I’ll ask you to remember. It’s an old sayin’ out o’ the far east: ‘Of the unspoken word you are master. The spoken word is master o’ you.’ Good-night.”
With this Betsy walked out of the room without one backward look, and Mrs. Bruce stood, baffled, and trembling with her own excitement.
Alone, she sank on the divan with her face buried in the pillows.
It was quite within the range of possibility that at this moment Irving was dancing with Rosalie Vincent, and did not even observe her own absence from the room.
She sobbed, stifling the sound in the pillows lest Betsy should hear and return to her assistance, believing her to be repentant. It was like Betsy to refuse to answer her; to treat her like a child; to throw upon her, by her manner, the blame of all that occurred. It was infuriating; unbearable. Her breath came in spasms, and she fought for her self-control.
CHAPTER XXV
WHITE SWEET PEAS
Captain Salter, in his five years of widowhood, had fallen into habits that varied but little from day to day. He cooked his own breakfast, and was off to his boat, or to the long shed where in winter he built them for other people, before Mrs. Bachelder set foot within his doors.
This Sabbath morning he rose, shaved, and made his customary demi-toilet, then went out to the stove and set the kettle to boil.
He lingered for a minute, smiling, before the Yellowstone postal-cards, his thoughts busy with the events of the evening before.
He held an imaginary reel in his hands and began slowly winding the invisible line.
“Take your time, Miss Betsy,” he hummed.
His cottage stood on a corner of land, facing out to sea. Rocks were to the left of it, a stony beach to the right. His boat-house was in sight. A flower-garden was in front, with a path that ran down between the beds.
Many a summer visitor had admired the position of the little white house, and tried to tempt Hiram to part with it; but his grandfather had built it, and the captain’s invariable reply to would-be purchasers was: “I haven’t come to that, yet.”
By habit he now moved to the window to note the sea’s mood. Some strange object caught his eye. His head went forward, his eyes seemed to bulge. A woman was seated on the rustic bench outside. Her back was toward him as she watched the rolling waves. She was dressed in dark brown, with hat and veil; and a traveling-bag reposed on the seat beside her.
“Steady, Hiram, steady!” he murmured, making long silent strides to the inner room, and catching up his coat. He gave two strokes of the brush to his stiff hair, and then strode out on tiptoe again to the window.
“’Twa’n’t any dream,” he muttered. “She’s there! Steady! Look out for the boom!”
He opened the door, and as Betsy turned her head, he spoke, quite as if it had been his daily custom to greet her at six-thirty A. M. in his garden.
“Good-mornin’. Things look kind o’ washed up and shinin’ after the rain, don’t they?”
His keen eyes studied his caller’s face as he advanced with a casual air.
“It’s a beautiful mornin’,” returned Betsy, her hand clasping the top of her bag tightly, and bright spots coming in her pale cheeks.
“You look as if you was goin’ off jauntin’ again,” said Hiram, feeling his way with care. “Gettin’ to be such a traveler you don’t make anythin’ of dartin’ off and dartin’ back again, like a – like a swaller.”
The lump in Betsy’s throat would not let her speak. Her silence mystified the captain more than anything she could have said. Determined not to frighten her, he plunged into generalities.
“I think it’s about time you paid a visit to my garden. Don’t you think it’s lookin’ good? If you’d a seen them lilies o’ the valley a month ago ’twould ’a’ done your heart good. They’re a-spreadin’ so, I donno but the cottage’ll have to git up ’n git. I remembered what you said once – that is,” added Hiram, correcting himself lest his visitor should rise and fly, – “my mother was always set on sweet peas, I try to have plenty of ’em.”
“They’re perfectly beautiful,” said Betsy, her eyes resting on the riot of color that embedded the white house in violet and rose and white. “I think it’s my favorite flower.”
“That’s what you said – ” began Hiram eagerly, and then cleared his throat and stammered. “My mother – yes, she used to say they was like butterflies, just swayin’ on the stem, and ready to fly.”
Betsy met his eyes as he stood apart, his stalwart figure uneasily moving, now toward her and then away, in his eager embarrassment. Something in her look drew him close to the seat.
“There ain’t any train for an hour yet,” he said gently. “I s’pose you took a bite, but you’ll have breakfast with me, won’t you, Betsy, ’fore I take ye over to the depot? I s’pose you’re leavin’ again.”
“Yes.”
She said it gravely, and dropped her eyes from his kind face.
“For how long this time?”
“Forever.”
The word was spoken quietly; but her lips quivered.
“What?” The man started, and frowned.
“Oh, Hiram,” – the lips were quivering still, and she paused, then reached up a hand which was quickly lost in both of his, – “can’t you see? I’ve come home.”
There were only the rocks, and the beach, and the waves that hissed and broke, to look upon them.
Instantly Hiram was beside her on the garden-seat, with Betsy in his arms, her thin cheek pressed against his broad chest, and sobs convulsing her slender body.
He scowled, and smiled at the restless sea across his precious burden. Not a word he said, but his big hand patted her in gentle rhythm, and once he kissed her temple.
At last she pushed herself from him, and sat up.
“There’s one favor I’m goin’ to beg,” she said, with pauses, her handkerchief still at her eyes. “That is, that you won’t ask me why. I feel as if I couldn’t go over it.”
“My Betsy,” replied the captain slowly, “there was only one question I ever wanted to ask o’ you. I did it a good many times, ’cause you didn’t give the right answer. Now you’ve done it, and I sha’n’t ask ye anything more.”
“And Hiram,” she went on, struggling for self-control, “I have a feelin’ as if – as if I didn’t want it – to happen here.”
“What?” asked the captain, doubtfully, “breakfast?”
“No – no – the – I feel as if I didn’t want any minister in Fairport.”
“I see.” He nodded. “Leave it to me, Betsy. Leave everything to me. I know I’m a blunderer lots o’ times; but I’ll attend to this right. I love ye.” He drew her down again on his comfortable shoulder. “Will ye come in?” he asked, after a minute.
“No. I’ll stay out here, Hiram.”
“All right.” He kissed her forehead. “To think ye’ll stay!” he said softly. “That’s the wonderful part of it. To think ye’ll stay!”
He went into the house and brought a calico cushion with him from somewhere, putting it behind her back. She accepted it, too spent to smile.
Hiram saw her pallor, and hastened the breakfast. Soon a little table appeared before the garden-seat, and coffee and toast and eggs were speedily forthcoming.
He sat beside her, and arranged everything with the utmost care.
“How good you are!” she said, once. Otherwise she was silent, and so was he.
Before they had finished, a small boy entered the gate with papers under his arm. His jaw dropped as he recognized the captain and a guest at breakfast under the ragged balm-of-Gilead tree.
“B’Judas, I forgot him,” muttered the host. “Come here, sonny.”
The boy obeyed, and mechanically handed the captain his paper while keeping unwinking eyes on Betsy. “Now d’ye want to earn a quarter?”
“Yus.”
“Well, go to Mrs. Bachelder and tell her somethin’ for me. Think ye can?”
“Yus.”
“She’s ben wantin’ to go to Portland and do some tradin’. Can you tell her that I’ve got some business to do that’ll keep me away all to-day and she needn’t come over to get dinner?”
“Yus.”
“And she can go up town to-day or to-morrer mornin’ and do her tradin’ if she wants to. Can ye tell her that?”
“Yus.”
“Well, go on then. Here’s yer quarter. Go right there from here. D’ye hear?”
“Yus.”
“If I find to-morrer that ye haven’t done it, I’ll use ye for porgie-bait. Understand?”
“Yus.”
With this the boy removed his eyes from Betsy for the first time, and ran at a dog-trot toward the beach.
“I never saw that child,” said Betsy.
“No. There’s another generation comin’ up. He won’t be able to tell Mrs. Bachelder who’s havin’ breakfast with me; and when she comes home from Portland she’ll get a letter tellin’ her she’s lost her job.”
“I’ll write it,” said Betsy. “She’s a good soul.”
“You’ll write it!” The captain was standing, and he paused, a cup and saucer in each hand, and gazed at her admiringly. “Clever Betsy! and she’s mine.”
“She’s taken good care of you, Hiram. I want her to know we appreciate it.”
“We!” repeated the radiant man. “You care that I’ve been took good care of, Betsy?”
The coffee had restored some energy to the guest. She gave her one-sided smile. “I do wish, Hiram,” she said deprecatingly, “that you wouldn’t feel you’ve got so much in gettin’ me.”
To her consternation he dropped the gold-banded old china he had been holding. Both cups fell in tinkling pieces on the ground as he wiped his eyes, and blew his nose lustily.
“O Hiram!” she cried, starting.
“Never mind, dear.” The man’s breath caught. “I didn’t notice. I had to work at the pumps. Our ship o’ matrimony is bein’ launched. Let’s say we broke ’em on purpose over it. Nothin’ was too good. Set still.”
And Betsy did. She leaned back against the calico cushion and let her faithful lover carry away the table, while she watched the sea, and breathed the sumptuous perfume of the sweet peas.
The last thing Hiram carried into the house was the traveling-bag. Her hand went out to it involuntarily as he picked it up; but he looked at her, and she leaned back again, and let it go.
At last he took his knife, and going about the flowers, cut a large bunch of white sweet peas. These he tied with a piece of linen thread, and Betsy smiled as he gave them to her. He watched while she fastened them in the front of her white waist.
“Are you ready now?” he asked.
For answer she rose, and together they moved down to the floating wharf, and Hiram handed her into the row-boat by which they went out to the Clever Betsy.
It took some time to unfurl the sails and put them up, and Betsy went into the little cabin and made acquaintance with her namesake.
It was queer, she thought, that it didn’t seem queerer to be here, and irresponsible of all things earthly except Hiram. Even Rosalie did not need her. Last night’s arraignment was proof positive of her success.
Her duty was here now, and nowhere else; and the wonderful feature of the position was that it seemed so natural, and – yes, so sweet. As the boat bounded forward, borne on strong white wings, Betsy’s heart seemed to soar also into some new and freer region. Some wireless message from a New England ancestry reached her.
“Is it right to be so happy?” she asked herself. Suddenly she turned and met Hiram’s eyes.
“This is a long leg, Betsy,” he said quietly. “Come over and sit against this cushion. I want to get my hand on ye and know it ain’t a dream.”
“Yes, it’s right!” answered Betsy’s heart, and she obeyed.