Betsy and the Great World and Betsy's Wedding
Page 23
The trouble was that Mr. Ray hadn’t reckoned with a war. With the war on, if Betsy gave any bank much time, she was likely to miss out on her ticket home.
“Oh, well!” she thought. “The American Express Company will just have to cash Papa’s check for whatever I need!” She refused to worry, but she did object to having to think about anything so mundane as money…when the world was in flames, and she should be back at Heaton’s, helping the other women. They were going to make shirts for soldiers.
“We’ll start this very afternoon,” Mrs. Heaton had planned at breakfast where there had been no sugar and no butter. “We women will sew, and one of the young men can read aloud.”
That, Betsy realized, was being optimistic. Mr. Claude was already gone; Mr. Dick had enlisted; and Mr. Leonard was only waiting.
“I could certainly be doing something more useful than thinking about money!” Betsy said disgustedly. But alighting from the bus she soon saw that plenty of other people had to do it, too.
An impatient queue already stretched two blocks from the American Express Company’s office. Bobbies were patrolling it; one of them waved her into line.
“You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble, Miss, if you just fall in. The door’s not even open yet.”
His eyes twinkled, and as she took her place, Betsy’s eyes began to twinkle, too. Here were all those Americans—or most of them—who had been rushing about Europe so happily with guidebooks and cameras and usually well-filled purses. Here they were, blown by war to England and longing to be blown still farther across the wide Atlantic to their own United States.
“We lost every scrap of our baggage.”
“I had my letter of credit, but a lot of good it did me.”
“Uncle Sam will get us out of this hole,” a booming voice proclaimed. “He looks after his nieces and nephews.”
Everyone wanted to talk…about past adventures, or the present situation, or the gallant little Belgians, or President Wilson’s neutrality proclamation.
“We won’t stay neutral long!”
The door did not open and the line grew longer. It started to rain, which struck Betsy and some of the other light-hearted ones as funny. Looking around, under the bobbing umbrellas, she thought she saw Mr. Glenn of the Columbic, but he was too far away to be hailed.
“And probably Mrs. Sims and Mrs. Cheney are in this line somewhere. Maybe even Miss Surprise!” But not, Betsy felt sure, Mrs. Main-Whittaker. She would be dashing about Paris scooping up material. And the Wilsons, Betsy knew, were still in Derwent Water. Their last letter had sounded serene, except for concern about her.
“If worse comes to worst,” she thought, “Dr. Wilson will cash a check for me.” But she was reluctant to burden anyone with her problem. Everyone, it seemed, had problems enough of his own.
These seemed to lessen, however, as the doors of the Express Company opened at last.
“Don’t push, laidies,” the bobby urged gently. “Remember, laidies and gentlemen, you’ve got all day.”
Some people talked about dropping out.
“But I can’t drop out,” said the booming voice which had once praised Uncle Sam. “I’ve got to get at least a thousand dollars.”
“But I hear we won’t be allowed more than a hundred.”
“A fine note!” Uncle Sam’s nephew roared. “They sold ’em to us; didn’t they?”
A lady standing ahead of Betsy turned around.
“Do you have a passport?” she asked.
“No,” Betsy replied, surprised. Very few people bothered with passports for a mere trip to Europe.
“Do you suppose someone might ask us for them?”
“Of course not,” Uncle Sam’s nephew cut in.
Betsy reached the door at last. The queuers, once inside, were being directed to various windows. Halfway to hers, Betsy stopped short at sight of a familiar figure.
“Oh, Mr. Brown!” she exclaimed.
It was, indeed, her kindly friend from Zurich. He wasn’t in any of the lines. Jaunty as ever, even in a raincoat, swinging an umbrella instead of a cane, as thin as ever, too, and no less bald, he was inside an imposing railing, leaning against an imposing desk, talking with the desk’s imposing occupant.
“Mr. Brown!” Betsy called again. Except for her own father there was no one, she told herself, she’d rather see.
Mr. Brown turned. His questioning gaze carried along the line from which the call had come, and his thin face broke into the pleasant smile Betsy remembered.
“Miss Ray!” he exclaimed and was alongside her in an instant. “The girl who would to Munich go! How grand that you got out! How are you?”
“I’m fine.” Betsy smiled back. She took a step forward in her window line and Mr. Brown followed. “I don’t suppose that Munich is very gemütlich now.”
“I take it,” he said, “that you’re here for money. But I understand they won’t give you much.”
“Oh, I only have one fifty-dollar check!”
“Only…fifty dollars?” He sounded startled.
“My father’s allowance comes monthly, and it hasn’t come yet for August,” Betsy explained.
“Do you have your passage home?”
“No. And it’s sort of complicated.” How wonderful, how comforting, to talk it over with Mr. Brown! “I’ll have to pay by filling in a blank check my father gave me. He signed it before I left home, and said I was to save it for an emergency. I guess this is an emergency all right.”
“Where do you think you can cash it?”
“I thought I’d try here. And in any case I’ll cash my fifty dollars.”
Mr. Brown in sudden decision drew her out of the line. “Never mind about that fifty dollars!” he said. “Let’s think about getting you passage home.”
He led her outside. The rain had stopped, and he swung his umbrella thoughtfully.
“The Arabic is sailing, I think,” Betsy suggested.
“No. Not a British boat. I know. Come along.” He took her arm, and they headed for the offices of the United States Lines.
Tourists were besieging it, but Mr. Brown got to an attendant who broke into a broad grin of recognition.
“Mr. Brown!”
“Good afternoon, Joe,” Mr. Brown replied. “Tell me where I can find…” His voice died away and Betsy could not catch the name he gave. But Joe did. He grinned more broadly and led Mr. Brown, with Betsy trailing, up to a second-floor office and a desk even more imposing than the one at which she had first seen him today.
The desk’s occupant looked up, and leaped to his feet in welcome.
“Van!” he shouted. “I thought you sailed a week ago.”
“Hi, Petey,” said Mr. Brown. “Nope! I didn’t sail. And now how glad I am! Because I can let you be kind to this very good friend of mine. Miss Ray, this is Petey Conant, a man who’ll do anything for me because without my help he’d still be a Princeton freshman.”
“A slander, Miss Ray,” said Petey. “The truth is that I pulled Van through. My coaching got him honors in history when alone he couldn’t even have told you that the Civil War was uncivil.”
“Look, Petey!” said Mr. Brown. “Can you squeeze Miss Ray into the Richmond?”
“Gosh!” Petey said and turned serious, but Mr. Brown cut him short.
“‘Gosh, yes!’ you were going to say. Good old Petey! And don’t bother about doing anything special. Miss Ray knows there’s a war on.”
“Gosh, Van!” Petey began soberly once more, but again Mr. Brown broke in.
“Just standing room, sort of, will do in any stateroom. Won’t it, Miss Ray?”
Betsy nodded, a little embarrassed, because she didn’t, she felt, merit special attention…especially when she was in no hurry to go home. She was about to say so, when Petey gave in.
“All right,” he said grudgingly. “For Miss Ray I’ll do it. But while she’s sharing a stateroom with three or four or more, ten thousand disappointed Americans are going to be tr
ying to cut my throat.”
“A detail!” said Mr. Brown. “Miss Ray, may I have your check?”
Betsy blushed. She looked around. “I’ll have to…” For the chamois bag was concealed beneath many layers of undergarments…even her corset.
“Of course!” said Mr. Brown consolingly. He too looked around, and so did Petey. Petey beckoned to a pretty clerk and she led Betsy down a corridor and opened a door. There in the necessary privacy Betsy extracted the chamois bag and the check. She also seized the opportunity to powder her burning cheeks.
She trailed the pretty clerk back to the desk where Mr. Brown and Petey waited, smiling.
“Will you have enough, Miss Ray,” Mr. Brown asked, “if Petey gives you five hundred?”
“I don’t need half that,” Betsy gasped. Did the man think her father was made of money? “The fare is under two hundred; isn’t it?”
Petey nodded.
“Let’s say two fifty then,” Mr. Brown suggested. “And Petey will cash your American Express check, too. You must have something extra.”
“Thank you so much!” Betsy cried when the tickets and money were safe in her purse and she and Mr. Brown were out on the street again. “My father will never be able to thank you enough. But he’ll want to try.” She remembered something. “You jumped off that Zurich train so fast that you didn’t give me your address. This time you really must.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Brown, and stopped a hansom cab.
Betsy was shocked. “I don’t ride in hansom cabs, for goodness sake! They’re awfully nice, of course. But I bus everywhere.”
“Not with that ticket in your purse,” Mr. Brown replied, helping her in. “We can’t have your pocket picked today. We’d never be able to squeeze another ticket even out of Petey.” He stepped back to say something to the driver, then returned and held out his hand.
“Good-by,” he said. “And take all your fences boldly, but not too boldly.”
“Good-by,” Betsy answered. “Oh, you’ve been so good!” Then she remembered again. “But you haven’t given me your address for Papa.”
The driver overhead clucked to his horse.
“To be sure,” Mr. Brown said hastily. “Of course.” He started fishing in his pockets as he had done before, and just as the cab rolled forward he found a card and thrust it into Betsy’s hand.
Rolling off toward Taviton Street, she looked at it. She looked at it again.
“For goodness sake!” she exclaimed aloud. “Just wait until Tib hears of this!”
For the full name of Mr. Brown was as familiar (or even more so) to Betsy and Tib as President Woodrow Wilson’s. Just Mr. Brown could be anybody. But this Mr. Brown! They had read about him in society pages for years and years!
“Imagine!” Betsy murmured. “Van Rensselaer Brown!” The eligible bachelor who was angled for by debutantes, and considered suitable for European princesses, even.
Betsy leaned back in the cab. “Tib said it for a joke…that I’d meet an American millionaire. But I have. And who would have thought he’d be so plain ordinary nice!”
He was even nicer than she had thought. Arriving at Mrs. Heaton’s boarding house, she found he had paid the cab fare.
Her ticket was stamped for September 1, and Betsy was glad that she did not have to hurry away from London. She was grateful to be able to share a little longer in the troubles that had befallen the old city.
She shared the sorrow of the fall of Liège. Betsy and Mrs. Heaton joined the crowds that thronged St. Paul’s Church for the Service of the Intercession. They sang “Rock of Ages” and “God Save the King.” They sat next to a mother and daughter who held hands and wept. On the other side was an overdressed girl with a round, almost silly face. She cried until her lacy handkerchief was a soggy ball.
Going out, Betsy touched her on the shoulder.
“Good luck!” she said.
“Thanks, ducky!” answered the girl. “And bad luck to the Kaiser! And it will be bad luck for him, all right, if he gets in my Bob’s way.”
Everywhere in London now there were huge placards saying, “Your King and Country Need You.” Sidewalk artists were picturing Earl Kitchener, who had become head of the War Office. As the congregation melted out of St. Paul’s, a street organ began to grind out the tune that all the slim young soldiers were marching to these days.
“It’s a long way to Tipperary,
It’s a long way to go…”
They had played that, Betsy remembered, on the Columbic on the first night out. She had been so blue because she was leaving home…and because of Joe!
She still hadn’t heard from him. Of course, she hadn’t given him an address, and not much mail nor many cables were getting through. Still, it wasn’t like Joe not to find a way—if he cared to.
Maybe, Betsy thought, he had stopped loving her. Maybe she was going to have to build her life without him. She took brave little Mrs. Heaton’s arm.
They had a very special tea that day. Claude was home on leave. Mr. Dick, now in uniform, was coming. And Jean and Dolly would be there, but tomorrow they would both leave for their homes.
Dolly’s book had been canceled. Jean’s show would not open. Their careers were over for the duration.
“But I’ve done the best I could for them,” Mrs. Heaton whispered to Betsy. “I’ve baked plum tarts.”
Everyone tried to be cheerful. Claude, on the arm of his mother’s chair, told some stories about new recruits. Jean and Dolly and Betsy laughed.
Mr. Dick came in, wearing his new ill-fitting uniform. He walked over to Betsy, smiling.
“Still keep up with the Agony Column?”
“Heavens, no!” Betsy answered. “I’m trying to learn to sew.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I clipped this,” he said and reached into his pocket. “Of course,” he added, “I know you aren’t the only Betsy in London. But do you know anyone named Joe?”
Betsy stared at him for a long unbelieving moment. Without a word she put out her hand.
Joe hadn’t forgotten her! And he had found a way! Holding the clipping fast, she ran out of the garden and up to her little white room. She sat down, with tears running down her cheeks.
“BETSY. THE GREAT WAR IS ON BUT I HOPE OURS. IS OVER. PLEASE COME HOME. JOE.”
She would cable a reply, Betsy thought, pushing the tears out of her eyes so she could read the wonderful words again. Perhaps she could think of something clever to say? But no, she didn’t want to! She was too aware of the worry, the dread, the grief down in the garden…the danger hanging over her friends down there, and over London and all of Europe. She was just full of thankfulness and love.
She found a pencil.
“JOE. PLEASE MEET S.S. RICHMOND, ARRIVING NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 7. LOVE. BETSY.”
She hadn’t forgotten him! And she hadn’t lost him!
“Oh, Joe! Joe!” said Betsy.
Betsy’s Wedding
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The verse in Chapter 11 was written by Darragh Aldrich and appeared in the Minneapolis Tribune in 1914. The verse in Chapter 18 is adapted from a verse by Earle Buell which appeared in the Minneapolis Tribune in 1917. The epigraph is from “For Katrina’s Sun Dial” by Henry Van Dyke, and the lines in Chapter 1 are from “America for Me” by Henry Van Dyke; both from The Poems of Henry Van Dyke, copyright 1911, 1939 by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. The lines from “Silk o’ the Kine” by Alfred Noyes, which appear in Chapter 6, are from Poems, copyright 1906, 1934 by Alfred Noyes, reprinted by permission of J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, and A. P. Watt and Sons, London.
For
LILLIAN HAMMONS WAKEFIELD
Hours fly,
Flowers die.
New days,
New ways,
Pass by.
Love stays.
—HENRY VAN DYKE
Contents
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
1. Home Again
; 2. Joe’s Plan
3. Objections
4. Objections Overcome
5. The Wedding
6. The Golden World
7. Three Rings of a Bell
8. Of a Meat Pie and Other Things
9. A Plot Is Hatched
10. A Millionaire for Tib
11. No Troubles to Pack
12. A Letter from Aunt Ruth
13. Night Life for the Willards
14. At the Violent Study Club
15. Rocky
16. “Everything’s Almost Right”
17. Just Like Tib
18. The Nest Is Feathered
19. Bridesmaids at Last
1
Home Again
ALMOST CHOKED WITH excitement and joy, Betsy Ray leaned against the railing as the S.S. Richmond sailed serenely into New York City’s inner harbor. The morning was misty, and since they had passed through the Narrows, she had seen only sky and water—and a gull, now and then—as though they were still out in the Atlantic. But she knew she had come home.
“…home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be…”
Betsy chanted softly to herself. She gripped the rail hard.
And Joe’s waiting for me! she thought. Oh, I hope he’s going to like me as well as he used to! I hope I look nice.
It wasn’t her fault if she didn’t. She had beautified herself as thoroughly as possible, but that wasn’t much, for she shared a stateroom with three older women—and had been lucky to have one at all. The outbreak of war in Europe had crowded to overflowing all American-bound ships. On the Richmond many men had slept on deck. There had been three sittings at table—the dishes were barely washed between—while talk went on and on about the adventures, the mishaps, the dangers the passengers had encountered in getting out of Germany, or France, or England. Talk was the only diversion for the vessel had sailed its fearful way in darkness.