Betsy and the Great World and Betsy's Wedding

by Maud Hart Lovelace

  She wished she hadn’t lost Joe.

  “That was the most foolish thing I ever did,” Betsy said in a small whisper to the rain and flying spray. “I wonder…if I wrote him…”

  But she knew she wouldn’t. She was too stubborn.

  8

  Travel Is Broadening

  IN THE BAY OF NAPLES a hateful sensation which Betsy had almost forgotten began to creep back into her body. It was that feeling of forlornness, of not belonging, of “What am I doing here anyhow?” that she had felt when the Columbic set sail.

  At first she laid it to the weather, for a dreary drizzle had begun. It was hard, too, to part with so many friends. What made it harder was their overflowing kindness. They all gave her calling cards, and Betsy offered her own in return. She seldom used them at home, but she had found out that they were important when traveling.

  Mrs. Sims and Mrs. Cheney wrote down their Boston addresses and asked her to come and visit them sometime. Taylor and Rosa shook her hand, and Rosa had a little gift for her—a silk handkerchief with the Rock of Gibraltar on it.

  Betsy promised them post cards of Minnehaha Falls. And Mr. Glenn asked for one, and so did the English lady. She invited Betsy to have tea with her in London. Betsy felt ashamed, for she had barely been aware of the lady’s name. It was Mrs. Trevelyan.

  Hardest of all was parting with the Wilsons, who were touring Italy and Greece before starting northward. She had grown fond of the humorless, kind, little professor. And as for Miss Wilson…

  “Why, I love her!” Betsy realized in surprise.

  They suggested again that she join them for some travel, and Betsy felt very different about the proposal than she had felt in Boston. She was even tempted to telegraph Miss Surprise that she was staying in Italy now. But she refused to yield to this unvalorous impulse.

  “I’ll write you from Munich, though. I’ll write to you at the Casa delle Rose d’Oro.” That was the Wilsons’ first mailing address, the House of the Yellow Roses in Venice.

  She promised them, and half a dozen others, to report her arrival in Munich. She was given instructions about changing money and getting through customs. Dr. Wilson was wiring a Thomas Cook agent to meet her in Genoa.

  “And Mr. Brown can help her,” Mrs. Trevelyan said, referring to the thin young man who had come aboard at Algiers. “He’s going on to Genoa. Where is Mr. Brown?”

  Everyone looked around for him, but he had already gone ashore.

  Most of those who were continuing to Genoa fared forth with mackintoshes and umbrellas to see Naples.

  “See Naples and die!” they reminded Betsy brightly, but she felt as though, in her case, that would be all too true.

  “We could go to the movies,” Mr. Burton urged, but she shook her head.

  The deserted ship was uninviting; it was taking on coal. Betsy undressed, piled into bed under warm blankets, and rang for a pot of hot tea. She remembered that she had some steamer letters left and started to read them, but they made her want to cry. She opened Julia’s present for the day, and that did make her cry. It was a small silk American flag! Just as twilight fell, she saw a great steamer, blazing with lights and flying those same dear Stars and Stripes, move majestically out of the harbor, bound for home. Home!

  “Life is just too short,” wept Betsy, “to spend a year away from home!”

  But she felt different the next day.

  The rain had stopped, and sunshine was pouring golden warmth over the world. On the upper deck, she got wind-blown and freckled, gazing at the Bay of Naples.

  It looked startlingly familiar. The sky and water were as brightly blue, the amphitheatre of hills as richly green, the city as white and shining, as in all the pictures. And there was Vesuvius, its summit wreathed in smoke!

  “Oh, I wish I had time to see Pompeii! But I’ll be coming to Europe often.” She saw herself this morning as a woman of the world who would travel and write for many years before she married—if she married at all.

  Mrs. Trevelyan’s Mr. Brown strolled past, swinging his cane. He was almost good-looking, in spite of being bald. His tweed suit, although rumpled, sat jauntily on his bony shoulders. He gave Betsy a friendly look, but she didn’t respond with her usual ready smile.

  “Married, no doubt!” she thought tartly.

  Mr. Chandler and Mr. Burton encamped on either side of her. As the Columbic sailed out of the famous bay, they pointed out the shore where St. Paul had landed in Italy, the hillside where Virgil was buried, the island on which Cicero had visited Brutus after the murder of Caesar.

  The great names brought back hushed churches, dusty classrooms, a red morocco set of Stoddard’s Travel Lectures in the bookcase at home. But here, today, the water rippled and gleamed; gulls were swooping; sails were bellying in the wind. It was alive!…and it had been like this for Cicero and Virgil and St. Paul. They had been alive! Betsy felt as though she had made a great discovery.

  The olive-green islands showed shining towns, or melancholy ruins. The loveliest one bore only a castlelike building set in thick-clustering trees. She told Mr. O’Farrell about that one at luncheon where they had the table to themselves.

  “Celeste and I are going to come back and stay there some time,” she informed him.

  “I hardly think you’d enjoy it,” he answered. “The residents are all life convicts…the murderers of Italy.”

  “Oh, dear!” said Betsy with a laugh.

  Mr. O’Farrell didn’t laugh. “Miss Ray,” he said gloomily, “you don’t know enough about the world to be traveling around all alone.”

  “Why, Mr. O’Farrell!” She was disappointed in him. “I’m twenty-one years old.”

  “You’re very young for twenty-one. Besides, you’re too trustful.”

  Betsy glanced at him quickly. Was this a joke? She decided that it wasn’t, for he looked really troubled, brooding over a cigarette.

  “I don’t see what could happen to me,” she answered patiently. “I won’t speak to strangers, or do anything I shouldn’t. I intend to behave in Munich just as I did in Minneapolis. But if it will make you feel any better, I am going to a friend of my sister’s. She’s promised to look after me until I’m settled.”

  “Faith, and I’m glad to hear that!”

  “The only bad thing about traveling alone,” Betsy confided, “is getting homesick.”

  Mr. O’Farrell looked up. “Do you get homesick?”

  “Terribly.”

  “What do you do about it?”

  “Just put up with it until it goes away.”

  He shook his head. “She’s a naive intrepid spirit,” he remarked as though to someone else.

  “I wish to goodness,” Betsy said with irritation, “that people would stop calling me naive!”

  Then Mr. O’Farrell’s face crinkled into its charming smile. “Miss Betsy,” he said, “you’re a very winsome girl!”

  The rest of the day had a hurried unsettled feeling. She said good-by to everyone she met. She thanked the stewards and stewardesses, and gave her modest tips, and Mr. O’Farrell asked her to come to his office, to exchange some American money for Italian lire and centesimi. When this was done, he smiled delightedly.

  “I have a gift for you,” he said, and spread a map of Europe across his desk. In one corner was a picture of the newest steamship of the line, a monster of forty-six thousand tons. Across the top was printed in red letters, “Six days from Munich to New York.”

  Betsy marveled. “Could I really get home in six days?”

  “You could that!” He folded up the map and handed it to her. “Now keep this handy for when you get homesick!”

  “Oh, I will! Thank you!”

  But she did not forget the great lesson. It was brought home to her at dinner, for he ate hastily and seemed abstracted. Asking her pardon, he rose before dessert, and to her astonishment began to speak farewells.

  “Why, why…I!” Confused, Betsy got to her feet. “I’ll see you in the morning, sure
ly.”

  “Alas, I’m afraid not! It’s a madhouse here at the end of a voyage. But the Thomas Cook man will look after you like a father.” He took both her hands with hurried gallantry. “I bless the saints that led me to put you beside me at table.” He smiled and was gone.

  Betsy sat down slowly. She understood! His wife would be coming on board!

  “But I wouldn’t have minded. I’d have liked meeting her.” An unpleasant thought dawned. Maybe she’d have minded?

  Mrs. Trevelyan’s Mr. Brown smiled at her from the Captain’s table. Betsy looked straight through him in a snub. Mr. Chandler dropped by her chair. He hinted pensively that it was beautiful on deck, but Betsy said she had to pack. Taking a leaf from Mr. O’Farrell’s book, she put out her hand. She’d be busy in the morning, she informed him, smiling. His despair was flattering but she knew he was already wondering how many pretty girls would make the return voyage.

  “Travel is broadening,” thought Betsy.

  Next morning she had to say good-by to the Columbic. She hated to do it, for she had loved it all, down to the merry bugle that called them to meals. But a cruise had to end. Like a dance! Like a dream! Soon the deserted ship would be scrubbed and polished in preparation for another voyage—another escape from life, thought Betsy, for still another group of people.

  She stood waiting with her suit cases piled at her feet, holding her handbag, camera, umbrella, and Complete Pocket Guide. Her heavy coat hung over her arm for she was traveling back into the winter.

  “Yes, I’m Miss Elizabeth Ray,” she said to the man from Cook’s.

  Mr. Feeney saw her ably through the customs. He guided her to the railway station, bought her tickets, and supervised the weighing of her trunk. With his help she sent a telegram to Miss Surprise, announcing her arrival the following morning. It seemed good to think that someone awaited her in Munich! And she was surprisingly glad to see dull Mr. Burton, who appeared with some chocolates for her.

  He and Mr. Feeney put her into a first-class compartment which she occupied in solitary glory. She had planned to travel second class; first class was only for royalty and rich Americans, she had been told. But she was feeling too timid to protest any arrangements.

  The little room opened into a corridor, and on the opposite side a window let down like a streetcar window for the admission of luggage. Mr. Feeney pointed out the dining car—the restaurant car, he called it. He reminded her that she changed trains at Zurich; she could get a sleeping car there. Then a bell rang. He jumped off, and the train began to move.

  “Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,

  He travels the fastest who travels alone…”

  She was alone again, all right, thought Betsy.

  She went to the restaurant car in some trepidation, wondering whether she ought to be trying to remember German or French. “They couldn’t expect me to know Italian!” She was both relieved and disappointed when the waiter greeted her in English.

  “I work in Chee-ca-go. A ver’ fine ceetee,” he said.

  “How do you suppose he knew I was an American?” Betsy thought, and looked studiously out the window as Mr. Brown came in.

  While she was eating they went through Milan, and she saw the snowy dome of the great cathedral. Milan, she thought, was another place she must come back to. But she was feeling less and less like that adventurous woman of the world. Returning to her compartment, she plastered her nose against the pane.

  There were mountains on the horizon, hazy as cloud mountains at first, but the train climbed past hillside pastures and sloping vineyards. Soon pineclad mountains were rising all around her. Now and then a stream or waterfall caused Betsy to squeal with delight.

  But the lakes choked her with their beauty.

  “A lake at the base of a mountain is the loveliest sight in the world. It must be!” she thought.

  Sometimes the water was a tranquil mirror reflecting its giant companion. Sometimes both mountains and lakes were veiled in blue-gray shadows. She leafed through her guidebook eagerly. Were these lakes Como, Lugano, Maggiore? The towns adjoining them seemed to be made up of glittering hotels.

  She knew when they entered Switzerland because Swiss customs officials came in to examine her bags. They could understand her French, it seemed, but she couldn’t understand theirs. Her questions brought forth a babbling torrent of words which seemed to bear no resemblance to anything she had heard in her French class.

  “And I was an A student!” she thought disgustedly.

  After they left, her door opened again, and Mr. Brown looked in.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said, “but I was on the Columbic. My name is Brown.” He had brown eyes, Betsy noticed, very alert and bright.

  “How do you do?” she replied.

  “I’m a friend of Mrs. Trevelyan,” he added hopefully.

  “And how many children do you have?” Betsy asked mentally. Aloud she responded in an icy tone, “Yes?”

  He looked embarrassed. “I just wanted to say that if you need help with French or German, I’ll be glad to interpret.”

  “Thank you,” answered Betsy. “I’ve studied French and German.” This sounded so childish that she flushed.

  “Well, I’m in the next compartment if you need me,” said Mr. Brown, and left her.

  Betsy tossed her head. She went back to the window and told herself that these were the Alps. They were so high that she could scarcely see their summits. When she did crane her neck to view the rounded blue-white peaks, she saw more peaks rising behind them, and more, and more.

  The cataracts leaped now from dizzying heights. Toylike chalets perched in terrifying niches, and down in the valleys were red-roofed villages. It was so Switzeresque! she thought.

  “Oh, I need Tacy, or Tib, or Julia!” She needed some one to share it all with, to exclaim to. She was almost tempted to summon Mr. Brown. But she resisted even when daylight faded, and the lights came on, and she could no longer divert herself with views.

  Her excitement subsided, and she began to feel increasingly forlorn. The beautiful Columbic, she thought, had been only an oasis in the desert of this awful trip. Here she was, alone in Europe, while her family sat heartlessly around the fire at home…

  The lights in the compartment blurred.

  “I’m hungry; that’s what ails me,” she decided and walked down the corridor looking for the restaurant car, but it wasn’t there any more. She opened Mr. Burton’s chocolates.

  After a while the conductor came in and said something in German. It must have been German for she caught the word Fräulein, but the rest was as baffling as the French had been. Of course, she hadn’t studied it since high school.

  “What could he have wanted?” she thought when he went out. “Well, I should worry!”

  She sat still and awaited developments, but nothing happened—especially nothing in the dinner line. They rattled along through the dark, and she grew hungrier and more wretched.

  Presently Mr. Brown came in again, a checked cap in his hand.

  “Please excuse me for intruding all the time!” His tanned face was so thin that his teeth looked large when he smiled, but the smile was very pleasant. “I suppose you understood that we have a stopover for supper?”

  “Supper!” Betsy cried with joy, and flushed because she had almost given herself away. “That is…I wasn’t sure.”

  “We have only fifteen minutes. I’m familiar with this station, and the restaurant. Could I help you?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  “You’ll need your coat,” he said and helped her into it and off the train.

  On either hand, snow-clad mountains climbed to the sky, and above them stars twinkled in a narrow lane.

  “Oh, this air! It’s like Minnesota,” Betsy cried.

  “Do you come from Minnesota?”

  “Yes. I’m going to Munich. My name is Elizabeth Ray.”

  He hustled her into the station restaurant. It was as clean as that ai
r had felt pouring down her throat. The cap and apron of the waitress were as white as mountain snow. There was a rich smell of coffee.

  Mr. Brown ordered in German without consulting her, and the dinner was delicious. They didn’t talk; they were too busy eating, and when they finished he paid the waitress, for which she was grateful. Foreign money was as bewildering as foreign languages, almost. But back at her compartment, she opened her purse.

  “I’d like to repay you for my dinner.”

  “Why, all right!”

  She took out a handful of mystifying coins. He selected one or two.

  “And thank you very much,” said Betsy, in a definite tone of dismissal. Mr. Brown smiled and retreated.

  She didn’t see him again until they were entering Zurich. Then, quite as a matter of course, it seemed, he came to her compartment door. He assumed the burden of her coat and suit cases, called a boy, and got her settled in the station waiting room.

  “What train are you taking out?”

  “It leaves about eleven-thirty. I have to get a berth on the sleeping car.”

  “Maybe I can get it for you now.” But it developed that he couldn’t.

  “The office is locked,” he said, returning. “They open in plenty of time, though, the porter says. And by the way, when you get a chance, better get rid of your Italian money. French gold is a good thing to carry. Well, good-by, Miss Ray.” He held out his hand.

  Betsy’s heart dropped like a descending elevator.

  “Where…where are you going?” she faltered.

  “To my hotel. I’m stopping in Zurich.”

  “You’ve been awfully kind.” She tried to keep the despair out of her voice.

  “It was nothing at all,” he answered. “You’re going to love Munich. It’s a cozy little city.” And he went jauntily out of the station, swinging his cane, and followed by a porter with some bags and…of all things…a pair of skis.