Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself

by Maud Hart Lovelace

She wished she could take a bath in the tub but she didn’t dare; the steam would uncurl her hair. She sponged carefully, however, put on her prettiest underwear, and pinned starched ruffles across her chest to give her figure an Anna Held curve.

  This wasn’t a real dress-up party to which she could wear the blue silk mull trimmed with insertion medallions which Miss Mix had made. She felt sure that Bonnie and Carney would wear waists and skirts. So she wore a white openwork waist over a pale blue cambric underwaist, a white duck skirt which Anna had carefully pressed, and a large pale blue hair ribbon.

  Julia did her hair…she had a gift with Betsy’s hair…and tied the hair ribbon. Mrs. Ray came in with her best perfume which she sprayed over Betsy’s waist. Margaret sat with Washington on her lap and watched with awed eyes. Only Mr. Ray remained in the parlor reading his newspaper.

  Betsy’s cheeks had flushed a vivid pink. The reflection she saw in the mirror was pleasant. She was excited and happy, but not so happy as she would have been if a boy were calling for her.

  Her mother and Julia kept tactfully away from the subject of boys calling for girls.

  “Just telephone Papa when…” Mrs. Ray was saying when a bell rang sharply below.

  “Oh, let it be the telephone!” Betsy prayed. But it wasn’t. It was the doorbell.

  Anna answered it. She always hurried to answer the doorbell in the evening even though she was washing dishes. She took a great interest in Julia’s beaux.

  “Tell him I’ll be down in a minute,” Julia called without even waiting for Anna to tell her who was there. She was intent on Betsy’s ribbon.

  Anna did not reply, but her feet mounted the stairs. She came into Betsy’s room, still wiping her hands on her apron.

  “Stars in the sky!” she said. “It’s for Betsy.”

  “I had an idea Cab might drop in to walk down with you,” Mrs. Ray said carelessly.

  “It ain’t Cab,” said Anna. “It’s the puniest young fellow I ever laid eyes on.”

  Everyone turned toward her.

  “What’s his name?”

  “He didn’t say. He just said he’d come to call for Betsy, and he went into the parlor and shook hands with your pa.”

  Betsy felt a surge of joy.

  “It must be Herbert,” she said. “He’s extremely puny.”

  “There’s a piece of pie left from dinner,” Anna said. “Do you suppose he’d like a piece of pie?”

  “Anna,” said Mrs. Ray, “did you ever know a boy who didn’t like a piece of pie?”

  Everybody laughed, and Betsy was very glad to laugh for she felt shaky with joy. An evening party, and a boy had called for her, and Herbert Humphreys at that!

  Anna hurried down, and Betsy twirled before the mirror, to make sure that her waist was tucked in neatly, and that no petticoats showed. She was glad she had a slender waist, and pretty ankles when the petticoats whirled; the starched ruffles gave her bust the proper curve.

  “Keep him waiting. It’s always a good plan,” said Julia.

  “Especially when he’s eating a piece of Anna’s pie,” said Mrs. Ray, and they all laughed again.

  While they were still laughing the bell rang again. Again Anna raced to the door.

  “Right down, Anna,” Julia called, fastening her best new bracelet on Betsy’s wrist.

  Again Anna’s heavy steps were heard on the stairs, and she burst into the room, her eyes gleaming.

  “But ’t’ ain’t for you, Julia. It’s Cab, and he said he came to call for Betsy, and then he saw that Herbert sitting in the parlor, looking so puny, and eating the pie. And he said, ‘Anna, what’s he doing with my pie? There’d better be a piece of pie for me too,’ he said. (But there ain’t.) He said to Herbert, ‘Why don’t you get yourself a girl of your own?’”

  “Aren’t they silly?” asked Betsy blissfully, going to the closet for her jacket.

  “I hope you can find Cab at least a cookie,” said Mrs. Ray, laughing.

  “Bettina,” said Julia. “I’m going to keep my beaux away from you. Sisters’ beaux are sacred. Do you hear?”

  It was glorious. Drooping in her most Barrymorish manner, she floated down the stairs. Margaret and Washington, Mrs. Ray and Anna came behind. Julia stayed upstairs to primp for Fred, but she peeked down to watch Betsy’s departure.

  Curled and flushed, treading on air, a boy on either side, Betsy went out into the crisp September night.

  On the way down to Bonnie’s house, the boys continued to wrangle. Bonnie not being present, Herbert was his usual hilarious self, and he and Cab joked and tussled, with Betsy an appreciative audience.

  “Ever been to the Andrews’ before?” Herbert asked Betsy as they approached the parsonage. It was opposite the Sibleys’, a sprawling old house, set back from the road.

  “No, it looks romantic.”

  “It’s something, all right.”

  And Betsy knew what he meant as soon as she entered the hall. The house had a foreign flavor. Bonnie now seemed almost like other Deep Valley girls but her home spoke of far away places.

  At the end of the hall a door stood open. Betsy saw books in rich abundance, not in cases behind glass, but on open shelves, up to the ceiling.

  “That’s Dr. Andrews’ library,” said Carney, who was taking Betsy’s jacket.

  “Think of having that many books right at home!” Betsy exclaimed.

  “It’s a fascinating room. It’s full of things the Andrewses have brought from Europe and the Holy Land. The pictures are prints of paintings from European galleries. Bonnie has seen the originals. Just think!”

  Betsy was enthralled.

  They did not go into the library, although Betsy longed to, but turned into the parlor. This too was remarkable, but in a different way. It was richly carpeted, with curtains of cream-colored lace, paintings in gold frames, damask-covered sofas, small polished tables with statuettes and little boxes on them. A huge, light tan grand piano filled one wall.

  “This isn’t a parlor, it’s a drawing room,” thought Betsy. “I’m in a drawing room for the first time in my life.”

  She stayed there only a moment, for the elegance of the room was unsuited to the occasion, and the two Triumvirates instinctively moved on to the cozy crowded back parlor.

  Dr. Andrews, impressive in a beard, came in to welcome them. He left, but Mrs. Andrews stayed on for a time and seemed, indeed, to hate to go. She obviously liked young people and greeted their sallies with a duplicate of Bonnie’s flowing laugh.

  Her hair was dark and crisply curly. She wore garnet ear rings, and beautiful rings, and a watch pinned to her shirt waist. Her speech had a slight odd twist which charmed Betsy.

  “Is she French?” Betsy whispered to Carney who shook her head.

  “English. But he met her in Paris.”

  How romantic! Betsy thought.

  After Mrs. Andrews left, the two Triumvirates played Consequences and Fortunes. Later they trooped to the kitchen and made cocoa and drank it with cookies and cake.

  For a while Betsy remembered her Ethel Barrymore droop; and she tried to imitate Julia’s manner with boys. But before the end of the evening she had forgotten the droop, and Julia’s manner just didn’t work. Boys worshiped Julia, but they teased Betsy. They teased her about her blushing; they teased her about her curls which they had discovered were manufactured; they teased her about using perfume and about her writing. She had had a poem published long ago in the Deep Valley Sun, and Herbert remembered it. He and Larry started calling her The Little Poetess, and Cab took it up.

  “Betsy, The Little Poetess!” they mocked, and Betsy pretended to be angry.

  Cab and Herbert both walked home with her. Before they reached High Street they were joined by Larry; Carney’s mother did not permit a lingering goodnight. Betsy’s mother did not permit it either, as Betsy well knew from injunctions she had heard given to Julia. But she paused a moment on the porch steps enjoying the tangy autumn chill, the brilliance of the stars, and the
satisfying presence of three boys pushing one another about and making jokes for her amusement.

  “Why don’t you come to Christian Endeavor Sunday night?” Herbert asked.

  “I’m a Baptist.”

  “Well, Larry and I are Episcopalians but we turn Presbyterian on Sunday night.”

  “I’m Welsh Calvinistic Methodist,” said Cab, “but I turn Presbyterian for Christian Endeavor. I’ll call for you if you’ll go.”

  “Not this Sunday night,” Betsy said. Tacy was coming for Sunday night lunch. “Some time I’ll go.”

  She ran into the house and up to Julia’s room where a light was burning. She had barely bounced to the foot of her sister’s bed when her mother came in, in a bathrobe. She too curled up on the bed and Betsy told them all about the evening…about the grandeur of the Andrews’ house, how nice Mrs. Andrews was, how Carney was undoubtedly going with Larry, and more about Herbert’s crush on Bonnie.

  The next day she told the whole story to Tacy on the telephone, and she told it again in even more detail on Sunday night when Tacy came to lunch.

  11

  Sunday Night Lunch

  SUNDAY NIGHT LUNCH was an institution at the Ray house. They never called it supper; and they scorned folks who called it tea. The drink of the evening was coffee, which Mrs. Ray loved, and although Betsy and Margaret still took cocoa, their loyalty was to coffee for her sake.

  The meal was prepared by Mr. Ray. This was a custom of many years’ standing. No one else was allowed in the kitchen except in the role of admiring audience. He didn’t object when Anna or Mrs. Ray made a cake earlier in the day; he didn’t mind the girls putting a cloth on the dining room table. But in the kitchen on Sunday evenings he was supreme.

  First he put the coffee on. He made it with egg, crushing shell and all into the pot, mixing it with plenty of coffee and filling the pot with cold water. He put this to simmer and while it came to a boil, slowly filling the kitchen with delicious coffee fragrance, he made the sandwiches.

  He got out a wooden breadboard, and a sharp knife which he always proceeded to sharpen further. He sliced the bread in sensibly thick slices and he never cut off the crusts. Mr. Ray’s opinion of sandwiches without crusts matched Mrs. Ray’s opinion of tea on Sunday nights. The butter had been put to soften, and now around the breadboard he ranged everything he could find in the ice box. Sometimes there was cold roast beef, sometimes chicken, sometimes cheese. If nothing else was available he made his sandwiches of onions. He used slices of mild Bermuda onions, sprinkled with vinegar and dusted with pepper and salt. About the use of pepper and salt Mr. Ray had very positive ideas. He used his condiments with the care and precision of a gourmet. Not too much! Not too little! And spread so evenly that each bite had the heavenly seasoning of the one before.

  “I’m not,” he used to say with sedate pride, “the sort of sandwich maker who puts salt and pepper all in one place with a shovel. No, siree!” And then he would add, for emphasis, “No siree, BOB!”

  The onion sandwiches were most popular of all with the boys who flocked to the Ray house.

  Mr. Ray didn’t mind company for Sunday night lunch; in fact, he liked it. The larger his audience, the more skill and ingenuity he displayed in his sandwich combinations. Tall, black haired, big-nosed, benevolent, an apron tied around his widening middle, he perched on a stool in the pantry with assorted guests all around.

  The guests were of all ages. Friends of Mrs. Ray and himself…the High Fly Whist Club crowd…friends of Julia, Betsy and Margaret were equally welcome. Old and young gathered in the dining room around the table beneath the hanging lamp. The big platter of sandwiches was placed in the center. A cake sat on one side, a dish of pickles on the other. There was the pot of steaming coffee, of course; but the sandwiches were king of the meal.

  After the Rays moved to High Street, there was always a fire in the dining room grate for Sunday night lunch. Often the crowd spilled over to pillows ranged around the fire. Almost everyone ended there, with a second cup of coffee and his cake. Talk flourished, until Julia went to the piano. Mr. Ray always made her play, “Everybody Works but Father.”

  Tacy came often for Sunday night lunch. And often she stayed all night. She stayed all night on the Sunday after Bonnie’s party. Betsy had ’phoned her, of course, to report that not one boy but two had taken her to the party. And in the course of the sandwich making, the sandwich eating, the general talk and singing, she gave her a few more high points. But not until she and Tacy went up to her room did Betsy do the party justice.

  Betsy talked on and on, and Tacy listened eagerly, undressing beneath a ballooning night gown, after the modest custom of Deep Valley girls.

  “It’s like a novel,” said Tacy at last, “by Robert W. Chambers. Imagine a house with a library, and a drawing room!”

  “You’ll be going there soon, Tacy. Carney and Bonnie both are anxious to get better acquainted.”

  “I’d love to go. It sounds marvelous. And Betsy you’re marvelous, too. Other girls think they’re doing well to get one boy for a party, and you had three.”

  “Not really,” Betsy objected, although pleased by the remark. “Larry only wanted to walk home with Herbert, and Herbert, of course, has a case on Bonnie.” Honesty compelled a further admission. “Cab likes me, but just as a friend. Mostly he likes coming to our house.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Tacy asked.

  “But I mean…it isn’t very romantic. Cab doesn’t feel the least bit romantic about me.”

  She had finished undressing and now she sat down in the middle of the bed, drawing her knees into her arms.

  “To tell the truth, Tacy,” she said, “I don’t feel romantic about any of these boys. I’ve known Herbert all my life, almost, and Cab’s a neighbor. When I feel romantic about a boy,” she added, “he’ll be somebody dark and mysterious, a stranger.”

  Tacy began to laugh.

  “A Tall, Dark Stranger.”

  “That’s right. Like in Rena’s novels.” Rena had been the Rays’ hired girl on Hill Street and Betsy and Tacy had read her paper-backed novels. Betsy joined in Tacy’s laughter, but after a moment she grew serious again. “I’m just practising on these boys,” she said, “so I’ll know how to act when my Tall Dark Stranger comes along.”

  “How does a girl act with boys, exactly?” Tacy asked.

  “Oh,” said Betsy airily, “you just curl your hair and use a lot of perfume and act plagued when they tease you.”

  September rolled on its slowly goldening way. The stairs and halls, the cloakrooms and classrooms of the high school became familiar ground. Betsy started singing in the Episcopalian choir. Her father and mother didn’t object at all. Julia had a birthday, her seventeenth, and Anna made a birthday cake and Fred was invited to supper.

  Chauncey Olcott came to Deep Valley in his play, Aileen Asthore. Mr. Ray took the family to hear him. Usually Betsy saw her rare plays at matinees with Winona who had passes because her father was editor of the Deep Valley Sun. But once a year when Chauncey Olcott came, she went to the Opera House in the evening with her parents.

  The Irish tenor was growing old and stout, but his swagger was as gallant as ever, his voice as honey sweet. Always in the course of the evening the audience made him sing a hit song of earlier years called, “My Wild Irish Rose.” At the end of the second act when he came out to take his curtain calls, someone in the audience would shout, “My Wild Irish Rose,” and others would take up the cry. Chauncey Olcott would laugh, shake his head, make gestures of protest, but the cries would continue, and at last the curtain would go up again, he would hoist himself a trifle heavily to a table or bench, and the orchestra would begin the much-loved song.

  Mr. Ray would take Mrs. Ray’s hand then. Julia, Betsy and Margaret…whose eyes were blazing like stars in the excitement of going to the Opera House…would settle back to enjoy each honied note.

  “Of course,” Julia said to Betsy afterwards, “that isn’t great music.”r />
  “Why, the idea!” cried Betsy. “If that isn’t great music, I’d like to know what is.”

  “Grand Opera,” answered Julia.

  “Like that Pagliacci you sing?”

  “Of course. But Chauncey Olcott is a sweet old thing.”

  A sweet old thing! Betsy was indignant. She and Tacy agreed that Chauncey Olcott was the finest singer in the world.

  September brought the first football game…the game with Red Feather. Carney, Bonnie, Betsy, Tacy, Winona and Alice drove in Sibleys’ surrey to the football field at the far end of town. The school colors were pinned to their coats, bows of maroon and gold, with yard-long streamers.

  Larry was halfback on the team which made Carney very important. Once Larry was knocked out for a few seconds and Carney turned white, and Bonnie held her hand. Cab and Herbert sat with the scrub team praying for an accident which would give them a chance to play.

  Betsy didn’t understand the game very well but she tried to shout and groan at the proper places. Bonnie didn’t understand it either, and she was earnest about trying to learn. Carney and Tacy and Alice, having brothers, knew all the fine points and watched the game with interest. Winona excelled at cheering. They all chanted together:

  “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

  All good children, go to heaven,

  When we get there, we will shout,

  ‘Red Feather High School, you get out!’”

  But Red Feather High School didn’t get out. It played to a triumphant score of forty to nothing.

  “Larry will feel bad,” Carney said soberly as they crowded back into the surrey. They returned to the Sibleys’ for cocoa, and Cab and Herbert came shortly, but not Larry.

  “He’s got the blues,” Herbert explained.

  “He shouldn’t have. He played well,” said Carney. “I’d send him some cakes except that he’s in training.”

  “Those Red Feather players weigh two hundred pounds apiece,” said Cab.

  “Everybody knows,” said Herbert scornfully, “that they’re practically grown men. They only stay in school for the football season.”