Mr. Chandler was very angry. “Dash it all!” he cried. “What do you mean…” But his furious voice died away.
Betsy, in Mr. O’Farrell’s arms, was dancing to the Blue Danube.
They didn’t talk. Betsy didn’t want to talk. His dancing was a little old-fashioned, but that didn’t matter. He was dancing with her!
Over his shoulder, as the music wove its rhythmical enchantment, she looked at the golden moon. She looked down the quivering golden avenue it made across the water, and it almost seemed as though they were dancing on that avenue, circling and swaying to the cadence of the waltz.
But the music ended. As it died away, Mr. O’Farrell said, “Thank you, Miss Ray! Faith, for a few minutes there, I thought I was young again!”
He kissed her hand. Betsy had never had her hand kissed before, and she was transfixed into silence.
Mr. O’Farrell bowed and left, and the wrathful bulk of Mr. Chandler immediately filled his place. Betsy dreamily gave him the next dance, although it had been promised to Mr. Glenn. It didn’t matter. Nothing in the evening mattered now.
“I believe, I believe, I’m in love with Mr. O’Farrell,” she thought.
“What the deuce did you do that for?” Mr. Chandler demanded, backing Betsy around in the long-legged Castle Walk.
“Do what?” asked Betsy, gazing at the moon.
“Give my dance to that fellow O’Farrell.”
“Was that your dance?” Betsy was still circling and swaying on that trembling golden path along the sea.
“You know deuced well it was my dance! See here! Will you listen to me for a moment?”
She shook herself out of a vision in which she was pouring coffee from a silver pot at Mr. O’Farrell’s glittering table. She was definitely Mrs. O’Farrell, and the table wasn’t in the dining saloon of the Columbic. It was in London, or Paris…or Dublin, maybe.
“Certainly,” she said, and led the way to the railing. She was glad to be able to stop dancing. It was a…a desecration, almost…to dance any more tonight.
Mr. Chandler objected. “Why, we can dance! I don’t have anything that important to tell you.”
“Oh,” said Betsy irritatingly. “I thought you did! I thought you had some great and important statement to make.”
“Like what? A proposal, I suppose.”
“Why not? Don’t you propose to every girl you rush?”
Her teasing was light. She was too happy to be cruel, even for Maida’s sake. But it seemed to impress Mr. Chandler profoundly.
He turned and looked at her. He riveted his eyes on her with grimness and power.
“I see,” he said. “I see it all!”
“But what is all?” asked Betsy, laughing.
“Why you’ve been treating me so. You think I’ve been fickle.”
His expression softening, he drew her tenderly from the railing toward one of the dark corners arranged for fussers. “A man wouldn’t be fickle to a girl like you. I know what you’re thinking, though, and that explains a lot. I wondered how you could cut a dance with me for an old married man with five children.”
“Why, I didn’t…” Betsy started to say, but she stopped.
Mr. Chandler was curious. “You knew, didn’t you, that O’Farrell is married?”
Betsy’s world was whirling, but instinctively she hung on to her pride. She heard a voice, still teasing, coming out of the cozy corner in which they were now seated.
“Of course! We girls always assume that you men are married. How many children do you have?”
“I’m single. And I want you to get it out of your head that there was anything serious about that little flirtation with your friend.”
“You did call her a Christmas angel though!” Betsy heard a tone of sweet reproach. She heard herself say next, “Listen to that tango! Let’s try it! If your tango is as good as your Boston…”
“Did you really like my Boston?” He stood up exultantly. She was dancing again, but only on the S.S. Columbic, not on an avenue of moonlight any more.
“You leave your family behind when you start out to travel,” Mr. O’Farrell had told her.
7
The Diner d’Adieu
ALGIERS WAS THE FIRST PLACE they visited to which Betsy did not wish to return. It was beautiful enough at first sight, spread out on a half moon of hills in the blazing sunshine…white, flat-roofed houses, the dome of a mosque hinting of the mysterious Orient, palm trees in green rows. And the modern section was a perfect little Paris, Mrs. Cheney told her as they went ashore. But Algiers frightened Betsy; it made her long for Minnesota.
In fairness it should be stated that she was in very low spirits. She was chagrined, furious with herself. Getting a crush on the first attractive man she met! Married at that! Five children!
Girls were always getting crushes, of course. People were amused by such affairs, but they weren’t funny, really. They hurt.
“I feel as though I were coming down with the grippe,” Betsy thought. But she wasn’t, she knew, coming down with anything. She was getting over something.
In their stateroom after the dance she had told Miss Wilson merrily about Mr. O’Farrell’s marital state. And up in her bunk she had confided the same news to her family. She worked rather hard over that letter.
“I guess my letters so far have had a decidedly O’Farrellish flavor. Don’t worry! I haven’t lost my young heart, but my wits have certainly been sharpened.
“He’s thirty-seven years old and terribly attractive. (That fatal Irish charm, tell Tacy!) He’s witty and full of blarney, with a dimple in his chin. He’s traveled everywhere, was decorated in South Africa, speaks French, wears evening clothes just right, and knows how to manage waiters. Absolutely cosmopolitan!
“And the first little lesson I’ve learned on my travels, I’ve learned from him. Hold your breaths now. He’s never told me he’s married!!! He doesn’t know I know it, but Mr. Chandler mentioned it tonight.
“The lesson? Not all married men are middle-aged and fatherly.”
That had a fine light touch, she thought.
And sailing to Algiers next day over a sea that seemed spread with cloth of gold, she had covered her misery with gaiety. She had roamed the ship in carefree company, trying out new dance steps on the promenade deck, flirting with Mr. Chandler. Especially at luncheon, she had been all vivacity and sprightliness.
Mr. O’Farrell told of meeting ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, and that started the table talking of famous people. The English lady had seen Lillie Langtry. Mr. Glenn had glimpsed the aged Longfellow. Miss Wilson, as a little girl, had presented a bouquet to Patti, and her brother had viewed President Lincoln in his casket.
“Well, I’ve seen Carrie Nation,” Betsy said. And the famous termagant who invaded saloons with a hatchet made more of a sensation even than the Jersey Lily.
“Where?”
“Oh, she was out in Minnesota smashing up a few saloons!”
“What did she look like?”
“She wore a funny little bonnet and a shawl and spectacles. My friends, Tacy and Tib, and I were walking along the street when we heard mirrors cracking and bottles and glasses crashing, and out she came!”
“Did she have her hatchet?” Mr. Glenn asked eagerly.
“She shook it at us.”
“Now, now!” Mr. O’Farrell admonished.
“I admit,” said Betsy, “she was shaking it at everyone, but she looked so fierce I was sure she had us in mind.”
“What happened next?”
“Our fathers found us,” Betsy answered sadly. “We were only seven.” And Mr. O’Farrell shook his head at her, laughing.
“Oh, Miss Ray! I derive such exhilar-r-ration from your company!”
Betsy gave him an enigmatic smile.
For Algiers she wore her suit. The red and green outfit admired by Mr. O’Farrell wasn’t citified enough for a French colonial capital, she decided. Besides, it made her look too artless, too much l
ike a girl who didn’t know a married man when she saw one.
The blue suit with its cutaway coat and draped skirt rustling over taffeta seemed much more sophisticated, especially when she added a blue hat with a tall green “stick-up” on it, and her best kid gloves.
At first the city seemed very French. It showed a formal square, wide tree-lined avenues full of carriages and automobiles, and on the sidewalks, under awnings, little tables where people sat drinking wine or coffee. She saw Frenchwomen, chic on high heels; Frenchmen with tiny mustaches; French officers in ravishing uniforms of soft horizon blue.
“Why, it is a little Paris!” Betsy exclaimed, looking around.
But she soon became aware that it was the Orient, too.
She saw robed men in turbans. There had been a scattering of them in Gibraltar, but here they were everywhere. She saw her first veiled women!
Waiting for a tram (as streetcars seemed to be called) that would take them up to the old Moorish fortress, Betsy saw Moors, Arabs, Spaniards, Biblical-looking Jews in robes—but the veiled women were most fascinating of all.
They wore long, loose white bloomers, short jackets, and veils covering all their faces but their eyes. Even girl children were shrouded like that.
“The poor little things!” Betsy cried.
Some of the women were tattooed between their eyebrows. Betsy thought it was a pathetic attempt at adornment, but Miss Wilson said it was a mark of caste. Some of them stained their fingernails bright red.
“That’s rather pretty,” Betsy remarked.
At the Fort, they joined a group from the Columbic and secured an English-speaking guide for the trip through the Arab quarter. This was quite unsafe for tourists alone, they were told. Mrs. Main-Whittaker was in the party and Betsy met her for the first time.
The author was wearing a red suit. She loved bright colors, and was undeterred by the fact that she was short and stout. Her red plumes were even higher than Betsy’s “stick-up.” She was loaded with jewelry and moved in a cloud of perfume.
She talked all the time. Had Joe liked her? Betsy wondered, trying to see her with his eyes as the party descended into the native quarter. Soon the squalor, the misery, the eeriness of the Kasbah reduced even Mrs. Main-Whittaker to silence.
The tourists were on foot, for the passage was too narrow for a carriage. There were a few starved-looking donkeys around, and a good many starved-looking people. Sometimes the narrow street was only a flight of steps, lined by ancient houses which all but met overhead. It had a twilight dimness although the time was early afternoon.
The people lived in what seemed to be little dens scooped out of the walls. Some were quite open, so that you could look in. Others had doors bearing tiny iron hands on them—for luck, the guide said.
“Luck!” ejaculated Betsy, for it was almost incomprehensible that human beings should live in these unlighted, evil-smelling, filthy caverns and still hope for luck.
“Yes,” said the guide. “And if they can’t afford the iron hands, they paint some on the door.”
Most of the people were so ragged, dirty, and emaciated that it was painful to look at them. The children, especially, almost broke Betsy’s heart. They were pitiful, little, dirty, tangled creatures, some bearing still smaller children on their backs.
Men wearing flat round hats with tassels were smoking Turkish water pipes, or sat in circles drinking small cups of black coffee. A public letter writer was ensconced in a doorway surrounded with maps and papers. For a franc he would write a letter for you, the guide said. There were bakeshops where circular loaves were piled in the dust, fly-haunted meat and fruit shops.
“I don’t think I can ever eat again!” Mrs. Sims whispered.
What made the awful place still worse was that everybody seemed to hate them. These people gave the visitors no sunny smiles or pleasant greetings such as had been general in the Azores and Madeira. The veiled women flashed hatred from their dark eyes, and the unveiled women motioned the visitors furiously not to look their way. All except the beggars drew away with sullen looks and mutterings.
“Why do they hate us so?” asked Betsy, almost trembling.
“We’re aliens and infidels,” Mrs. Main-Whittaker replied.
And perhaps, thought Betsy, holding the skirt of her suit above the refuse as she picked her way downstairs, they didn’t like well-fed, well-dressed, comfortable-looking travelers coming to stare. But if such people didn’t come—how would anyone find out that the misery existed?
The beggars were crowding about them now. Betsy had seen them first on the wharves among the clamorous guides and vendors. They had been bad enough there, but they were frightful now as they pressed close, screeching, whining, and holding out their hands.
Betsy held fast to Miss Wilson’s valiant arm. She tried to think about Minnesota, about Deep Valley where she had grown up, the river, and the peaceful sunny hills. And at last they came out of the Kasbah!
No, Betsy didn’t want to return to Algiers. She told Mr. O’Farrell so at dinner, where she was quieter than usual, thinking of the beggars and those unsmiling children carrying smaller children on their backs.
A few of the Columbic’s passengers had left and some new people had come aboard. One was a friend of the English lady, a Mr. Brown, but he sat at the Captain’s table and Betsy did not meet him. He was a tweedy, undistinguished-looking young man, very thin and partly bald. Later she saw him circling the deck and she liked his swinging easy gait. He carried a cane which he swung in rhythm. He wasn’t unattractive, but Betsy wasn’t sorry they had not been introduced.
“Men!” she thought.
The first lesson she had learned on her travels had left her feeling cynical.
Dressing for the Diner d’Adieu was no such pleasure as dressing for the Captain’s Ball had been. She didn’t even begin until the bugle sounded. Then she jerked out a yellow satin formal. It was old, but it had made a hit at plenty of college parties.
As dinner began she had only that false sprightliness that had been with her since Gibraltar. But the atmosphere of the dining saloon was irresistibly convivial. The musicians played with spirit: Waldteufel waltzes, the Pink Lady music, the “Pizzicato Polka”…And the nine-course dinner was elegantly described, with a sprinkling of French, on a souvenir menu. What fun to send it home!
She would underline her own choices: hors d’oeuvres variés; consommé aux pain grillé; turbotin au chambertin; calves’ head en tortue; forequarter of lamb, mint sauce; roast guinea chicken anglaise; dressed salad; and the dessert—it was her favorite, pouding à la St. Cloud! Then would come coffee and cheese, of course. Betsy’s spirits began to rise in spite of her.
People went skylarking from table to table. The Captain proposed toasts, and so did Mr. O’Farrell. And each table had its own nonsensical toasts:
“To Miss Wilson, heroine of The Flood!”
“To our Militant Suffragette!”
“To Carrie Nation!”
They drank them in punch à la Romaine.
Mr. O’Farrell looked at Betsy now and then with a slightly puzzled expression. He probably noticed that she seemed different, she thought. Or perhaps he was surprised that she was having so much fun?
“Probably he’s used to girls who find out he’s married, and are heartbroken about it. Well, he can see that I don’t care!” And Betsy grew gayer and more audacious all the time.
He was chaffing her about saying something unkind to him after the flood.
“It isn’t true. I never said anything unkind to you or about you either…oh, yes, I did once!”
“You did?” He was almost startled into seriousness.
“It was in a letter home,” said Betsy.
“By all the saints I’ll know what it was!”
“By all the saints you won’t!”
She could see that he was really curious, and it was a satisfaction to be provoking.
“Miss Ray,” he pleaded. “I asked the chef for this poudi
ng à la St. Cloud just for you. I’ve noticed that it was your favorite sweet. Shouldn’t such devotion be rewarded?”
“Oh, well!” said Betsy. “In that case…may I borrow your pencil?”
She turned over her menu card and wrote:
“And the first little lesson I’ve learned on my travels, I’ve learned from him. Not all married men are middle-aged and fatherly.”
While he read it she looked at the ceiling and her color rose until even her ears were red. She didn’t look down until his laugh burst out. It was a tremendous shout, and all of a sudden, Betsy felt elated and triumphant. He kept on laughing while the table smiled in bewildered sympathy, but at last he wiped his eyes.
“Ladies,” he said, “and gentlemen, too, of course! Won’t you do me the honor of coming to me cabin? I’d like to brew you some of me own coffee, which is superb, if you will par-r-don me saying so. And I wish to show Miss Ray a picture of the future King of Ireland.”
“The future King of Ireland?” Miss Wilson asked, startled.
“Dennis Leo O’Farrell, aged four, and said to be the image of his father.”
He was, too, Betsy discovered when the group was gathered merrily in Mr. O’Farrell’s cabin watching his ritual of coffee-making. He was an enchanting little boy. Chubby, of course, but he had that laughing light in his eyes.
“Faith, and he’s a spalpeen!” Mr. O’Farrell frowned at the radiant Betsy. “And so are you!” he added.
Mr. O’Farrell, Betsy decided, was a dear. After the party was over, she paused on deck to think about him. The S.S. Columbic was churning softly through the mild dark.
He had taught her a lesson, all right. She would watch out for married men.
“But he did more than teach me…that skim milk masquerades as cream.”
He had awakened her interest in so many things—faraway places and strange languages, folklore and legends, pictures and books she might never have heard of, beauties of every sort. She would never forget him, although she wasn’t in love with him any more—at all, at all.
It was strange, Betsy thought, how your estimates of people changed. Bob Barhydt seemed like a callow adolescent since she had known Mr. O’Farrell. Joe Willard stood up, though. No one could make Joe seem callow although he was young and had never traveled beyond Boston.
Betsy and the Great World / Betsy's Wedding Page 8
