The Prince and Betty

by P. G. Wodehouse

  CHAPTER XI

  A LETTER OF INTRODUCTION

  New York, revisited, had much the same effect on Betty as it had had onJohn during his first morning of independence. As the liner came up thebay, and the great buildings stood out against the clear blue of thesky, she felt afraid and lonely. That terror which is said to attackimmigrants on their first sight of the New York sky-line came to her,as she leaned on the rail, and with it a feeling of utter misery. By acontinual effort during the voyage she had kept her thoughts fromturning to John, but now he rose up insistently before her, and sherealized all that had gone out of her life.

  She rebelled against the mad cruelty of the fate which had brought themtogether again. It seemed to her now that she must always have lovedhim, but it had been such a vague, gentle thing, this love, before thatlast meeting--hardly more than a pleasant accompaniment to her life,something to think about in idle moments, a help and a support whenthings were running crosswise. She had been so satisfied with it, socontent to keep him a mere memory. It seemed so needless and wanton todestroy her illusion.

  Of love as a wild-beast passion, tearing and torturing quite ordinarypersons like herself, she had always been a little sceptical. The greatlove poems of the world, when she read them, had always left her withthe feeling that their authors were of different clay from herself andhad no common meeting ground with her. She had seen her friends fall inlove, as they called it, and it had been very pretty and charming, butas far removed from the frenzies of the poets as an amateur's snapshotof Niagara from the cataract itself. Elsa Keith, for instance, wasobviously very fond and proud of Marvin, but she seemed perfectlyplacid about it. She loved, but she could still spare half an hour forthe discussion of a new frock. Her soul did not appear to have beenrevolutionized in any way.

  Gradually Betty had come to the conclusion that love, in the full senseof the word, was one of the things that did not happen. And now, as ifto punish her presumption, it had leaped from hiding and seized her.

  There was nothing exaggerated or unintelligible in the poets now. Theyceased to be inhabitants of another world, swayed by curiously complexemotions. They were her brothers--ordinary men with ordinary feelingsand a strange gift for expressing them. She knew now that it waspossible to hate the man you loved and to love the man you hated, toache for the sight of someone even while you fled from him.

  It did not take her long to pass the Customs. A small grip constitutedher entire baggage. Having left this in the keeping of the amiableproprietor of a near-by delicatessen store, she made her way to theferry.

  Her first enquiry brought her to the cottage. Mrs. Oakley was acelebrity on Staten Island.

  At the door she paused for a moment, then knocked.

  The Swede servant, she who had been there at her former visit, twelveyears ago, received her stolidly. Mrs. Oakley was dusting her clocks.

  "Ask her if she can see me," said Betty. "I'm--" great step-niecesounded too ridiculous--"I'm her niece," she said.

  The handmaid went and returned, stolid as ever. "Ay tal her vat yu sayabout niece, and she say she not knowing any niece," she announced.

  Betty amended the description, and presently the Swede returned oncemore, and motioned her to enter.

  Like so many scenes of childhood, the room of the clocks was sharplystamped on Betty's memory, and, as she came into it now, it seemed toher that nothing had changed. There were the clocks, all round thewalls, of every shape and size, the big clocks with the human faces andthe small, perky clocks. There was the dingy, medium-sized clock thatheld the trumpeter. And there, looking at her with just the oldsandy-cat expression in her pale eyes, was Mrs. Oakley.

  Even the possession of an income of eighteen million dollars and aunique collection of clocks cannot place a woman above the making ofthe obvious remark.

  "How you have grown!" said Mrs. Oakley.

  The words seemed to melt the chill that had gathered around Betty'sheart. She had been prepared to enter into long explanations, and theknowledge that these would not be required was very comforting.

  "Do you remember me?" she exclaimed.

  "You are the little girl who clapped her hands at the trumpeter, butyou are not little now."

  "I'm not so very big," said Betty, smiling. She felt curiously at home,and pity for the loneliness of this strange old woman caused her toforget her own troubles.

  "You look pretty when you smile," said Mrs. Oakley thoughtfully. Shecontinued to look closely at her. "You are in trouble," she said.

  Betty met her eyes frankly.

  "Yes," she said.

  The old woman bent her head over a Sevres china clock, and stroked ittenderly with her feather duster.

  "Why did you run away?" she asked without looking up.

  Betty had a feeling that the ground was being cut from beneath herfeet. She had expected to have to explain who she was and why she hadcome, and behold, both were unnecessary. It was uncanny. And then theobvious explanation occurred to her.

  "Did my stepfather cable?" she asked.

  Mrs. Oakley laid down the feather duster and, opening a drawer,produced some sheets of paper--to the initiated eye plainly one of Mr.Scobell's lengthy messages.

  "A wickedly extravagant cable," she said, frowning at it. "He couldhave expressed himself perfectly well at a quarter of the expense."

  Betty began to read. The dimple on her chin appeared for a moment asshe did so. The tone of the message was so obsequious. There was notrace of the old peremptory note in it. The words "dearest aunt"occurred no fewer than six times in the course of the essay, its authorbeing apparently reckless of the fact that it was costing him half adollar a time. Mrs. Oakley had been quite right in her criticism. Thegist of the cable was, "_Betty has run away to America dearest auntridiculous is sure to visit you please dearest aunt do not encourageher_." The rest was pure padding.

  Mrs. Oakley watched her with a glowering eye. "If Bennie Scobell," shesoliloquized, "imagines that he can dictate to me--" She ceased,leaving an impressive hiatus. Unhappy Mr. Scobell, convicted ofdictation even after three dollars' worth of "dearest aunt!"

  Betty handed back the cable. Her chin, emblem of war, was tilted andadvanced.

  "I'll tell you why I ran away, Aunt," she said.

  Mrs. Oakley listened to her story in silence. Betty did not relate itat great length, for with every word she spoke, the thought of Johnstabbed her afresh. She omitted much that has been told in thischronicle. But she disclosed the essential fact, that Napoleonic Mr.Scobell had tried to force her into a marriage with a man she didnot--she hesitated at the word--did not respect, she concluded.

  Mrs. Oakley regarded her inscrutably for a while before replying.

  "Respect!" she said at last. "I have never met a man in my life whom Icould respect. Harpies! Every one of them! Every one of them! Every oneof them!"

  She was muttering to herself. It is possible that her thoughts wereback with those persevering young aristocrats of her second widowhood.Certainly, if she had sometimes displayed a touch of the pirate in herdealings with man, man, it must be said in fairness, had not alwaysshown his best side to her.

  "Respect!" she muttered again. "Did you like him, this Prince ofyours?"

  Betty's eyes filled. She made no reply.

  "Well, never mind," said Mrs. Oakley. "Don't cry, child! I'm not goingto press you. You must have hated him or else loved him very much, oryou would never have run away.... Dictate to me!" she broke off,half-aloud, her mind evidently once more on Mr. Scobell's unfortunatecable.

  Betty could bear it no longer.

  "I loved him!" she cried. "I loved him!"

  She was shaking with dry sobs. She felt the old woman's eyes upon her,but she could not stop.

  A sudden whirr cut through the silence. One of the large clocks nearthe door was beginning to strike the hour. Instantly the rest began todo the same, till the room was full of the noise. And above the dinthere sounded sharp and clear the note of the little trumpet.

/>   The noise died away with metallic echoings.

  "Honey!"

  It was a changed voice that spoke. Betty looked up, and saw that theeyes that met hers were very soft. She moved quickly to the old woman'sside.

  "Honey, I'm going to tell you something about myself that nobody dreamsof. Betty, when I was your age, _I_ ran away from a man because Iloved him. It was just a little village tragedy, my dear. I think hewas fond of me, but father was poor and her folks were the great peopleof the place, and he married her. And I ran away, like you, and went toNew York."

  Betty pressed her hand. It was trembling.

  "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

  "I went to New York because I wanted to kill my heart. And I killed it.There's only one way. Work! Work! Work!" She was sitting bolt upright,and the soft look had gone out of her eyes. They were hard and fieryunder the drawn brows. "Work! Ah, I worked! I never rested. For twoyears. Two whole years. It fought back at me. It tore me to bits. But Iwouldn't stop. I worked on, I killed it."

  She stopped, quivering. Betty was cold with a nameless dismay. She feltas if she were standing in the dark on the brink of an abyss.

  The old woman began to speak again.

  "Child, it's the same with you. Your heart's tearing you. Don't let it!It will get worse and worse if you are afraid of it. Fight it! Kill it!Work!"

  She stopped again, clenching and unclenching her fingers, as if shewere strangling some living thing. There was silence for a long moment.

  "What can you do?" she asked suddenly.

  Her voice was calm and unemotional again. The abruptness of thetransition from passion to the practical took Betty aback. She couldnot speak.

  "There must be something," continued Mrs. Oakley. "When I was your ageI had taught myself bookkeeping, shorthand, and typewriting. What canyou do? Can you use a typewriter?"

  Blessed word!

  "Yes," said Betty promptly.

  "Well?"

  "Not very well?"

  "H'm. Well, I expect you will do it well enough for Mr. Renshaw--on myrecommendation. I'll give you a letter to him. He is the editor of asmall weekly paper. I don't know how much he will offer you, but takeit and _work!_ You'll find him pleasant. I have met him at charityorganization meetings on the East Side. He's useful at theentertainments--does conjuring tricks--stupid, but they seem to amusepeople. You'll find him pleasant. There."

  She had been writing the letter of introduction during the course ofthese remarks. At the last word she blotted it, and placed it in anenvelope.

  "That's the address," she said. "J. Brabazon Renshaw, Office of_Peaceful Moments_. Take it to him now. Good-by."

  It was as if she were ashamed of her late display of emotion. She spokeabruptly, and her pale eyes were expressionless. Betty thanked her andturned to go.

  "Tell me how you get on," said Mrs. Oakley.

  "Yes," said Betty.

  "And _work_. Keep on working!"

  There was a momentary return of her former manner as she spoke thewords, and Betty wavered. She longed to say something comforting,something that would show that she understood.

  Mrs. Oakley had taken up the feather duster again.

  "Steena will show you out," she said curtly. And Betty was aware of thestolid Swede in the doorway. The interview was plainly at an end.

  "Good-by, Aunt," she said, "and thank you ever so much--foreverything."