THE LAST STAGE
“I SHOULD like to know why they put us in the last stage!” demanded
Mrs. Bruce, in an irate tone.
“Many advantages,” returned Irving, with a twinkle of his eyes toward
Betsy.
“There are not, Irving Bruce, and you ought to have done something
about it! Haven’t we always heard about the dust of the Yellowstone?”
“Yes, that’s why they oil the roads now,” returned Bruce pacifically,
“and we don’t have to hurry, by this means, you see. Take our own time.
Don’t have to hurry past anything to make room for the next stage.”
“I never could endure _leavings_!” exclaimed Mrs. Bruce, her eyes still
snapping as the last stage came around the curve toward the steps.
Betsy attracted her attention.
“See those folks you said looked so aristocratic,” she said quietly.
“They’re goin’ with us.”
Mrs. Bruce followed the direction of her maid’s meaning glance and
observed the deaf gentleman’s party of three. Insensibly Mrs. Bruce’s
ireful expression relaxed. There was that in the tone of this party
which could lend distinction even to the last stage.
Mrs. Bruce gazed at the trio appreciatively.
“I marvel,” she murmured to Betsy, “that they haven’t their own
equipage.”
Betsy sighed with relief and felt that the day was won.
Having observed the dignified, florid-faced man with the white
mustache, the tall woman in half-mourning, and the quiet young girl who
accompanied them, Mrs. Bruce spoke again distinctly:—
“If I should not be taking any one’s place on the driver’s seat, I
should like to sit there very much.”
“We shall take turns as to that, I fancy,” replied Irving. He noticed
the small rubber device hanging about the neck of the deaf gentleman
and turned to the lady beside him.
“Will you sit up in front to start off?” he asked, lifting his hat.
“Your husband enjoys more through the eyes than through the ears, I
observe.”
The lady, with whom smiles were evidently a rarity, met his eyes and
essayed one. She thanked him, and turning to her companion pointed to
the driver’s place, as they moved down the steps.
The gentleman shook his head and motioned the lady into the middle seat
of the stage, which she entered.
“But where is Robert?” she exclaimed in a sort of dignified panic.
“Miss Maynard,” turning to the companion who waited passively, “I
thought you said you saw my son a moment ago.”
“Yes, Mrs. Nixon, in the office,” replied the girl.
“Henry! _Henry!_” pursued the lady, pushing against the deaf
gentleman’s shoulder both to attract his attention and to prevent his
entering the stage. “Robert!” She mouthed the name distinctly and
motioned toward the hotel. “_Robert!_”
“Damn Robert!” returned the other, under the usual impression of the
deaf that his heartfelt expression was inaudible.
As a matter of fact no one observed it in the confusion. Mrs. Bruce
was absorbed in mounting to the coveted place with the driver. Irving
offered to put Betsy up beside her; but Miss Foster declined. “Get
right up there, Mr. Irving. I’m going in here behind you.”
Meanwhile the two waitresses had obeyed a summons, and Rosalie with
her head down and praying to be invisible hastened with her companion
to the steps. Her prayer was answered, because all the party were too
preoccupied to note the two girls who came swiftly by and entered the
back seat of the stage. Moreover, at the same moment out from the door
of the hotel came a young fellow in outing clothes and cap, who was
greeted with well-bred rebuke by Mrs. Nixon, and a grunt of relief from
the deaf gentleman, who put Miss Maynard into the seat and followed her.
“Well, I told you not to bring me, didn’t I?” responded Robert. His
voice was loud and cheery, and had, in his more gleeful moments, a
trick of breaking into a high register with a joyous inflection which
endeared him to those who enjoyed his conversation. He was clean, gay,
and young; but if he possessed any beauty it was of the mind; and among
his acquaintance there was a wide difference of opinion on this point.
While his mother voiced her dignified rebuke, his quick eye glanced
along the stage to take in its possibilities.
Rosalie was shrunk into the further corner of her seat, directly behind
the Nixon party, and Miss Hickey, meeting his glance, chewed vigorously
while lifting her head with an elegant air of impersonality.
In Robert’s own mental vernacular he “passed up the gum.”
The driver’s seat was full, the alternative was the one in front of his
mother’s party, where Betsy Foster reigned alone. He stepped in beside
her while he spoke to his mother.
“I told you not to bring me,” he declared again, cheerfully. “I told
you I’d be more trouble than I was worth.”
“You actually detained the stage, dear. I was about to send your uncle
Henry to find you.”
Quick as a flash the culprit snatched the device which aided the deaf
gentleman’s hearing, and shrieked across it above the clatter of the
stage.
“Don’t you ever do it, Uncle Henry. Rise up and declare your rights.
What if I am lost?”
“That’s what I say,” responded the older man, equably. “Small
loss. One of my rights is not to have my ear-drums cracked. They’re
sufficiently nicked already.”
He took back the rubber disk with decision.
Irving had turned around during this interchange and looked down from
his high perch.
“Hello, Nixie,” he said.
Robert leaned forward with alacrity, and took the down-stretched hand.
“_Et tu, Brute?_” he cried, his voice breaking joyously.
Betsy stole the first glance at her companion. His unfeigned gladness
to see her idol was in his favor.
He turned to his mother: “Bruce of our class. Didn’t you recognize him?
Best fullback the college ever saw.”
“I did think there was something familiar about that young man’s face,”
responded Mrs. Nixon. “Most attractive; and such charming manners.” Her
carefully modulated voice fell agreeably on Miss Foster’s ears. “He
tried to give us the front seat; but the lady with him,” Mrs. Nixon
raised her eyebrows, “was so very anxious to secure it, that I was glad
your uncle refused.”
Mrs. Bruce turned and looked down to see Irving’s friend, and
exclaimed at once, beaming with interest:—
“I remember you perfectly, Mr. Nixon. You were so funny on Class Day.”
As Mrs. Bruce spoke, her eyes roved again to the young man’s party.
“I remember you at the games too, Mrs. Bruce,” replied the young
fellow, rising, “and for the same reason. You were so funny! We’re
a couple of family parties, it seems. My mother, and my uncle, Mr.
Derwent, are here, and at the first stop we’ll all become acquainted.”
So saying, Robert dropped back into his seat, and turning with scarce
a pause to his mother, said explanatorily, “Brute’s stepmother. An
up-and-coming dame. You will have to meet her.”
Mrs. Nixon frowned at him significantly and nodded her head toward
Betsy’s immovable back.
“All right,” said Robert airily, and glanced at the woman who shared
his place. The walnut profile impressed itself upon him for the first
time, and in connection with the Bruces he now remembered the woman to
whom Irving had been so attentive on various college occasions. “I’ll
be jiggered,” thought the youth, “if it isn’t Brute’s nurse! Well, we
are being chaperoned through the park, good and plenty.”
Then he amazed his mother by addressing his companion.
“Why, how d’ ye do? Why didn’t you speak to me?”
Betsy gave her odd one-sided smile as she looked back at his cheerfully
grinning countenance.
“It’s all so long ago now, Mr. Nixon, I didn’t suppose you’d remember
me. I didn’t know you at first.”
“I’m not at all surprised. I’ve grown old and decrepit in the last two
years; but to show you my mind isn’t failing yet, I can tell you where
I last saw you. It was in a gondola in Venice.”
Betsy smiled and nodded.
“I remember your calling across to Mr. Irving very well, Mr. Nixon.”
“Good. Your memory’s all right, too.”
Helen Maynard, sitting quiet and forgotten at Mrs. Nixon’s elbow,
looked at Robert with some approval for the first time. He swung around
in his seat so suddenly that he accidentally caught her glance. Miss
Maynard had a symmetrical little nose and mouth, and he liked the way
she did her hair; and wearing her present expression it occurred to
him for the first time that the young woman, who was both his uncle’s
stenographer and his mother’s companion, was rather fetching.
“Did you see the formation pretty thoroughly yesterday, Miss Maynard?”
he asked briskly.
Her quickly averted eyes sought the splendid sweeps of Jupiter Terrace
which the stage was now passing.
“Quite thoroughly,” she replied briefly.
“We went the regular round,” said Mrs. Nixon. “Your uncle was really
bewitched with everything.”
Mr. Derwent, his hands crossed upon the head of the stick he carried,
sat in the isolation of the deaf; his eyes fastened upon the delicate
and wonderful coloring of the stationary cascades of deposit, over
which the water was trickling; building—ever building greater beauty
with its puny persistence.
He caught his nephew’s eye with a good-humored twinkle. “Great example
of what industry will do,” he remarked.
“Fierce!” replied Robert, and made an energetic dive for the rubber
disk, which his uncle foiled by a quick move. The youth fixed Mr.
Derwent with his gaze, and moved his lips with care to be distinct.
“I’ve always refused,” he declared loudly, “to have the busy bee or the
coral insect thrown at me; and I now add the Yellowstone water to the
black list.”
“If words,” replied Mr. Derwent, “could build anything, you would rear
temples of amazing height, Robert.”
“And rare beauty,” added the youth. “Don’t forget that, please.”
Miss Hickey changed her gum to the other side of her mouth. “Ain’t he
fresh?” she murmured to her companion. “Did you see the look I gave him
when he come up to the stage? I tell you I wasn’t goin’ to have him
crowdin’ in here with us.”
“I waited on them at breakfast,” murmured Rosalie. “He’s just jolly all
the time.”
Miss Hickey bridled. “Well, he wouldn’t jolly me more’n once. I know
his kind: awful fresh;” and the gum gave a vault and turn which only
the most experienced can accomplish.
“And they’re all friends!” murmured Rosalie apprehensively.
“Oh, brace up!” returned Miss Hickey impatiently. “If you haven’t
stolen their spoons I don’t see what you’re so scared of; and you’re
too much of a baby to have done that.”
“No, I never—never lived out anywhere,” breathed Rosalie.
“Well, if you think it’s such a disgrace to be a waitress in the Park,
what did you come for?”
As Miss Hickey scented offense, her tone began to rise, and Rosalie
grasped her arm pacifically. “No, no, it isn’t that! It isn’t in the
least that!”
The girl’s conscience squirmed a little as she made this reply, and she
swallowed and went on. “It’s a long story, too long to tell, and not
interesting; but oh, Miss Hickey, do try to wait on the Bruces this
noon, won’t you, like a dear good girl!”
“’Twon’t be up to me; but I’d be mighty glad to do it, you bet! Did you
hear that fresh chap call him Bruty? _Bruty!_ That prince! Well, I’ve
got a name for _him_ all right. Did you ever study about them heathen
gods? I did. I’ve got an awful good education if I do say it; and
there was one of ’em so ugly if he walked by a clock it would stop. His
name was—let’s see; it was Calabash. Well, it just fits that feller to
a T. If I looked like that, I’d go way back and sit down instead of
fillin’ the stage so’t nobody can look at anybody but him.”
“The girl with them seems to be a companion,” whispered Rosalie. “I
tried to get that sort of a place.”
“Oh, shoot!” returned Miss Hickey, trying the endurance of the gum
severely. “I could get that job easy, I know, on account of my
education and knowin’ my way round the way I do; but there ain’t enough
freedom to it. If we’d rather go to a Swattie ball now than to sleep,
we have our choice; but a companion has got to be right on the job
night and day.”
Rosalie looked off at the distant mountains, and then back at the nape
of Miss Maynard’s pretty neck, and began to wonder if she was as lonely
as herself. Apparently Mrs. Nixon addressed no one except her son, and
Rosalie guessed that Miss Maynard, placed behind her employer’s cold
shoulder, was in reality as far removed from her as she herself felt
with regard to her neighbor.
The beautiful, beautiful world! Rosalie sighed and leaned forward, the
better to get the splendid sweep of vale and mountain, and suddenly
caught the eyes of Robert Nixon, his arm thrown along the back of the
seat as he turned to converse with his mother. Rosalie shrank back into
her corner. Betsy Foster might turn around, too!