Clever Betsy

“Oh-ho!” ejaculated Miss Hickey, mentally. “You take notice, do you?”

“Perter’n a chipmunk,” she returned aloud. “Say,” meeting Irving’s uplifted gaze, “is that gent with the bum ear, the deef gent, I mean, – is he on the level?”

“Why – certainly. Did – did Miss Vincent – ”

“Yes, she did. She told me he was sendin’ her back. Say; do you know her?”

“Yes, slightly.”

“Then you know that she’d believe Satan if he smiled on her. I’d like to know that she’s in good hands. That’s what I’d like to know.”

Irving Bruce smiled upon Miss Hickey, a bright light in his eyes.

“Do you see the thin-faced lady over there, the one with the brown waist?” he asked.

“Sure. The hatchet-faced one.”

“Miss Vincent is in her hands,” said Irving; “and they’re the best hands in the world.”

He rose.

“Well, believe me, I’m glad to hear it,” was the hearty response.

Irving smiled upon Rosalie’s friend again, and gave her a tip which not only supplied her with candy for weeks to come, but gave her food for thought as well.

“Maybe I didn’t butt in just right!” she reflected. “Oh, he’s just grand! Good for Baby! I guess she’s goin’ some!”

Betsy bided her time. She was sure that before the party reached Boston, Mr. Derwent would again open the subject of their mutual interest.

Irving’s silence upon it awakened no suspicion in her faithful breast. She had assured him that all was well, and adjured him to trust her; and, his mind set at rest, the thought of Rosalie had slipped out of it, which, considering that he belonged to Mrs. Bruce, was the best thing that could happen.

Betsy’s expectation was well-founded. One afternoon after their train had left Chicago, and there came a lull in the interminable games of bridge which had whiled the hours away, Mr. Derwent approached the seat where Betsy sat alone, viewing the flying landscape – flat but not unprofitable.

“May I sit here a minute?” he asked.

She gave him a one-sided smile of welcome. A veil was wrapped around her head in much the same fashion in which she wore a cheese-cloth on cleaning days at home.

They talked for half an hour; the noise of the train increasing, as it always did, the ease of Mr. Derwent’s hearing.

Mrs. Bruce glanced at them more than once, well pleased with the satisfied expression on her handmaid’s countenance.

She addressed Mrs. Nixon.

“What an extraordinarily kindly man your brother is!” she said.

“The best in the world,” agreed Mrs. Nixon impressively.

Had either of them heard the directions he was giving Betsy at that moment, they would have edited their praise.

Helen Maynard and both the young men were occupying a section opposite, showing one another card tricks, and Mrs. Nixon and Mrs. Bruce with quiet minds discussed their summer wardrobes, and the Fairport Inn.

By a strange coincidence the subjects being discussed by Betsy and Mr. Derwent were precisely the same.

CHAPTER XIX

MRS. BRUCE’S HEADACHE

“Be it ever so humble,” said Mrs. Bruce, “there’s no place like home!”

She was standing again on the veranda of her summer cottage, where Betsy was airing and beating pillows.

“Pretty good place,” agreed Betsy. “I’m glad I ain’t goin’ to see a trunk for months; but – ” she hesitated unwontedly, and then continued, “I’d like to go to Boston for a couple o’ days, Mrs. Bruce, if you can spare me.”

“Dear me, when we’ve just arrived?”

“The cook’s all right, and you’ve got Mr. Irving and his friend both here – ”

“A lot of good they are,” retorted Mrs. Bruce. “They’ve lived with Captain Salter ever since we came.”

Betsy said nothing. Mrs. Bruce had the uncomfortable realization which seized her at times that, although her None-such went through the form of asking her permission, she would in fact do exactly what she thought best.

“It’s such a queer thing for you to want to do, Betsy,” she continued, “to go back into the heart of the city immediately. Of course Mrs. Nixon felt obliged to stay a few days with Miss Maynard, to order some gowns – ”

“Do you want to send her any word?”

“Yes, I promised to look at the rooms at the inn and see what they had.”

“Can’t I do that for you?” asked Betsy.

“Why, yes, I wish you would.”

“I can go this afternoon just as well as not,” remarked Betsy quietly.

“Don’t it beat all, the way things come round all right if you just don’t fidget?” she thought.

The middle of the afternoon found her on the way to the pretty inn, set on a slight rise of ground above the river. Mr. Beebe, the proprietor, was a Fairport man, an old friend of Betsy’s, whose provincial ideas had for years been in process of changing and forming by contact with the summer people for whom he catered; and what had once been a barn-like structure known as the Fairport Hotel, now showed as a modern inn, with verandas and a pretense to fashion.

Mr. Beebe welcomed Betsy with effusion, rallied her on her travels and her worldly experience, and at last settled down to listen to her business.

When finally she arose to go, he remarked: —

“Well, seems if there wasn’t any end to the new-fangled notions a feller’s got to listen to and adopt to keep up with the times. I haven’t forgot how clever you were to my wife when she was sick a couple o’ years ago, and I don’t like to turn down anything you ask of me.”

“I appreciate your kindness, Sam, but you ain’t goin’ to lose money by this plan. You know we are all pretty proud o’ the Inn. If Mrs. Bruce wasn’t she’d never a recommended it to the Nixons. They’re folks that are used to the best; and we’d like to see it have all the attractions any resort has. Mark my words, you’ll thank me for this, instead o’ me you, though I ain’t underratin’ your good feelin’. Good-by, Sam.”

Clever Betsy left the place with a springing step.

She found her mistress in a rather injured frame of mind when she reached the cottage. It wore upon the lady that the None-such was going to desert her post for two days.

“That’s the worst of having a person like Betsy,” she thought; “one gets so dependent. It’s humiliating. I feel just like asking her not to go, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that.”

So Mrs. Bruce compromised by being silent and wearing an abused air.

“Once in a while Betsy will do a real selfish thing,” she reflected; and she demanded of memory to stand and deliver the last occasion when her housekeeper had displayed base ingratitude. Memory appearing to find the task difficult, she resorted to deep sighs and an ostentatious headache.

Betsy was amused, but also somewhat touched.

“She ain’t anything but a child, never was, and never will be,” she thought. “You can’t get out of a barrel what ain’t in it.”

She told her mistress of the pleasant rooms at the inn available because of having suddenly been given up by their usual occupants. “I’ll go see Mrs. Nixon and tell her about ’em,” she added. “Mr. Beebe’s promised to hold ’em till Wednesday.”

Mrs. Bruce put her hand to her forehead, but apparently was too far gone, sunk among her cushions, to reply.

“I think it would be real nice for you to do a lot o’ sailin’ while I’m gone,” said Betsy cheerfully.

“That’s just about as considerate as you are!” returned Mrs. Bruce, with remarkable fire for one in the languorous stage of headache. “You know very well that at the best of times I don’t care very much for sailing.”

“I thought with Mr. Irving and Cap’n Salter both, you felt real safe, and enjoyed it,” said Betsey pacifically; and Mrs. Bruce had sundry disconcerting memories of hiking hilariously with her hand on her boy’s shoulder.

“Don’t you suppose,” she said with a superior air, “that I ever make a pretense of enjoying things for Irving’s sake?”

Betsy’s lips twitched. “You acted so natural you took me in,” she returned meekly.

Mrs. Bruce sank back again among her pillows.

“I’ll make out a list for all the meals while I’m gone,” said Betsy comfortingly, “and give it to the cook. You see, Mrs. Bruce, one o’ my friends that’s lived in the country and is very inexperienced, wants to get a few clothes in the city. She don’t know where to go or what to pay, and I told her I’d come in for a couple o’ days and help her. You won’t scarcely miss me before I’m back.”

“I must say, Betsy,” declared her mistress faintly, “some people would have waited until there was no guest in the house.”

“I’m real sorry I can’t wait,” returned Betsy gently; “but I’m goin’ to arrange for the meals, as I say, so you won’t have a mite o’ trouble, and Mr. Nixon always makes everything jolly.”

Mrs. Bruce made no reply, and Betsy left the room.

Going out on the street, she heard a piercing whistle down the street, executing a classic which would inspire a bronze image to cake-walk.

Betsy did not attempt any fancy steps, but she started on a long, energetic stride in the direction of the shrill ragtime.

She waved her hand with a gesture which she knew would check Robert’s effervescence.

He waved his cap in return.

“Where’s Mr. Irving?” she asked as soon as he could hear her.

“He’s helping Cap’n Salter with the sail. They didn’t appreciate my services, so I came away.”

“I just wanted to tell you, Mr. Nixon, that I’m goin’ to Boston.”

“Giddy creature! The whirl of the city drawing you so soon?”

“I’m goin’ to tell your mother what rooms there are at the inn, and if you have any message – ”

“I have. Tell her it’s great here, and to let me know as soon as she’s through using the car, because I want to bring it down – or up.”

“I will. Say, Mr. Nixon,” – they were strolling toward the house, Betsy hanging back unaccountably, – “I hope you and Mr. Irving’ll be sort of attentive to Mrs. Bruce for a couple o’ days.”

“Sure thing. I’m eternally attentive to her. What’s up?”

“Well – she doesn’t like to have me go; has the habit of me, you know; and I’ve got to go, that’s all there is about it.”

“Sad! sad!” ejaculated Robert. “Frightful thing – habit. You seemed so mild out in the Yellowstone I hadn’t an idea you couldn’t endure the quiet of the country a week.”

“Now I’m relyin’ quite a lot,” said Betsy, “on your foolishness.”

“What?” inquired the young man, his voice breaking.

“Mrs. Bruce can impose on Mr. Irving – I mean, – you know what I mean, she can make him fall in with her moods; while you – well, you’re just as good as a rattle to – ”

“Betsy, – now, Betsy, beware! I have average poise, I hope, still I’m only human. My head can be turned!”

Betsy smiled. “I don’t know as I exactly make you understand what I mean – ”

“Oh, yes, you do. Your meaning is as clear as clear limping water. Please don’t be any more definite or I may burst into tears; and it’s in every etiquette book that I ever read, that it isn’t proper to make the company cry.”

“Yes, that’s the way,” said Betsy with satisfaction. “Just chatter to her like that, and she’ll – ”

“Betsy! Cruel one! How can I impress you!”

“Now listen,” – they were drawing near the house – “Mrs. Bruce’ll act sick when you go in. I don’t mean she’s actin’, but she don’t like things to go the way she hasn’t planned ’em; and she’s a real dependent little lady, and you and Mr. Irving must keep her as happy as a lark while I’m gone. I’ve got to get off early in the mornin’, and I may not get a chance to see him alone at all; so you tell him I’m real sorry, and I’ll hurry back, and you take her with you everywhere, and look out for her and – and I’m goin’ around this back way. She’s right in the livin’-room. You’ll find her.”

Betsy disappeared with guilty haste, and Robert, smiling to himself and whistling softly, mounted the steps.

“Once there was a book,” he thought, “named ‘Pink and White Tyranny.’ Madama’s an anachronism. She belongs in it.”

He presented himself cap in hand at the door of the room where Mrs. Bruce lay motionless on a thickly pillowed divan.

“Any admittance?” he asked.

The sufferer stirred. “Is that you, Nixie?” she returned faintly.

He advanced to the divan. “Dear me, what’s this? You were so fit this morning.”

“Oh, I’ve been quite upset.”

“You look it. Absolutely knocked down. Nothing serious, I hope?”

“Where’s Irving?”

“Mending a sail with Captain Salter. They were so disrespectful to me that I came home.”

“I’m very poor company, I’m afraid,” said the hostess languidly.

“But at least you appreciate me, Mrs. Bruce. You don’t hurt my feelings every second word you utter. Mayn’t I sit here by you,” – the speaker took a chair close to the divan, – “and rub your head, perhaps? My mother will tell you I’m a cracker-jack at it.”

Mrs. Bruce gave an inarticulate exclamation of dissent.

“I should expect you to rub my hair off,” she exclaimed faintly.

“It doesn’t look like that kind,” returned Robert innocently.

Her eyes were closed, but she could feel his, brightly curious, fixed upon her coiffure.

“You make me nervous, Nixie. Would you mind taking a book?”

“A thousand pardons, dear hostess! Of course I will. I did just want to ask your advice about the car, though.”

“What car?” Mrs. Bruce’s eyes opened.

“Ours. I think when mother gets through dressing Miss Maynard, we’d better have it here. Don’t you?”

“The roads are excellent,” replied the prostrate one.

“Of course it’s Uncle Henry’s car, but it’s all in the family.”

“We haven’t one, just now,” said Mrs. Bruce. “We sold it when we went to Europe; and Irving is such a merman we thought we wouldn’t do anything about a new one till we went back to town.”

“I suppose you have an electric for yourself,” said Robert.

“I’m going to have one as soon as we get back. I’ve always thought I was too timid to drive it, but of late I’ve come to feel that I don’t like to be the only woman that hasn’t one.”

“Oh, you are just the person to drive an electric,” said Robert, his eyes twinkling as Mrs. Bruce unconsciously raised herself to a sitting posture among the pillows. “You’ll spin down to the bank every afternoon and bring Brute home.”

“I really do think you’re right, Nixie,” returned his hostess plaintively. “I have a very cool head, and it’s all nonsense that I couldn’t drive an electric even in the Boston cowpaths, while in the Parks – ”

“Oh, my dear Mrs. Bruce, never think that Brute will accompany you there!”

“Why not?” The question had all the usual crispness.

“Such a stately method of locomotion will not commend itself for his sportive hours. What car does he think of getting?”

The question opened a flood-gate; and for the next fifteen minutes, talk of pros and cons regarding different high-class motors snapped with an ever-increasing vivacity in the erstwhile chamber of suffering.

Once Betsy came near the door and listened.

“But that car doesn’t have to be cranked,” she heard her mistress declare in bright tones.

She nodded with satisfaction and ran upstairs to put her belongings in a suit-case.

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.