THE FOUNTAIN HOUSE
IT was late and cold when the party reached the Fountain House, and the
big open fire burning in the office was a welcome sight.
Robert Nixon’s prophecy was fulfilled, and Mr. Derwent managed to be
waited upon by Rosalie at supper. The Bruce party happened to sit with
their backs to that table, and indeed Betsy did not expect either of
her companions to recognize the girl in this place and position so
remote from the spot where they had known her but slightly.
Mrs. Pogram had often in past days spoken to Betsy of her husband’s
distant relatives the Vincents, once wealthy and highly placed, then
reduced to financial ruin, illness, and death, leaving this pretty
blossom alone on the family tree. The good lady had often mentioned, as
being to Rosalie’s credit, that she was without false pride or foolish
reverting to the past of her luxurious childhood; and the situation had
appealed to whatever was romantic in Betsy Foster’s breast. There had
always been for her some atmosphere about Rosalie Vincent as of the
exiled Princess in servitude, and the sweetness with which the girl
undertook Mrs. Pogram’s drudgery had oftentimes excited an admiration
in Betsy which she never put into words.
She fought now with a sense of pathos that Rosalie should be hurrying
back and forth under the orders of hungry travelers.
Irving commented at supper upon Betsy’s sociability with the pretty
waitress in the stage, and some instinct bade the good woman guard her
secret.
“She is a very intelligent girl,” Betsy replied. “It seems it’s quite a
common thing for nice poor girls to see the Park in this way.”
“A very good idea, too,” remarked Mrs. Bruce. “Just as the college boys
wait on table in the White Mountain resorts.”
Betsy breathed more freely. If Mrs. Bruce were going to approve this
move of Rosalie’s, it would be a relief. Fully able to fight her own
battles, she shrank sensitively from hearing this girl discussed and
criticised.
“That’s what I say, too,” she returned. “I think it shows good courage
in a girl to strike out and see something of the world. It shows
character and enterprise.”
Irving looked at his old friend curiously. It was unlike her to express
so much. It was some embarrassment to Betsy to take her meals with her
employers, as the herding together of crowds for food on this trip
made necessary; and this was the first time she had opened her lips
voluntarily at table.
In the mean time Rosalie was again winning laurels from the Nixons, and
Helen Maynard looked up at her as she gave her orders.
When the party left the table, Helen lagged behind.
“Miss Vincent, Rosalie,” she said low to the waitress, “don’t you
remember me at Lambeth?”
Rosalie colored.
“Yes; but please don’t remember me!” she returned.
Helen eyed her sharply.
“I mean it,” said Rosalie. “You’re very kind, but I’ll tell you some
time.”
She turned away, and Robert Nixon advanced toward them.
“Pardon me, Miss Maynard, I thought you were ahead of me.” Then when
they had moved toward the door, he laughed. “Have you caught the
infection? Mother is gravely considering getting the girl’s address and
having her come to Boston.”
“She blushed like the traditional rose when I spoke to her,” returned
Helen, and said no more.
The recognition of her school-friend put Rosalie in a new flutter; and
yet such was the joy of sitting on the back seat of the stage with
Betsy that she had not the heart to hope for orders to stay at the
Fountain House.
For the hundredth time she calculated what money Mrs. Bruce had
expended on her course in English, and for the hundredth time felt
herself wither under the scorn of that lady’s eyes should she recognize
her and discover that, after all, she had not been able to rise above
the level where she was found.
“If I could only pay her! If I could only pay her!” sang through the
girl’s head like an ever-recurring refrain.
The sudden announcement that the Fountain Geyser was about to play
caused a stampede among the guests of the hotel, and everybody who had
wraps to withstand the cold of the July evening hastened out to be in
time for the show.
Mrs. Bruce was greatly excited. “It’s a shame, a perfect shame that the
Company don’t warn people to bring flannels and furs,” she said. “Even
my sweater feels like muslin.”
“You’re going to wear my overcoat, Madama,” said Irving, beginning to
put it about her.
“No indeed, Mr. Irving,” burst forth Betsy, and was rewarded by a flash
behind Mrs. Bruce’s eyeglasses.
“Do you suppose I should allow him, Betsy? What are you thinking of!”
As she spoke sharply, the offended woman drew away from her son, and
Betsy hastened to mollify her.
“I’m going to wrap you up in my things, Mrs. Bruce,” she said.
The lady made a faint protest.
“Yes, ma’am, you let me, because you couldn’t drag me away from this
fire anyway. I’d rather see flames spout than water to-night.”
Irving frowned. “You didn’t come across the continent for that, Betsy,”
he began.
She gave him her one-sided smile. “I came across the continent because
I had to,” she returned, meanwhile making her slender mistress
shapeless under a large golf-cape. “I’ve been readin’ the guide-book;
and I’ve got lots o’ geysers comin’ to me yet.”
“I do think,” said Mrs. Bruce, when she and Irving were out of doors
and hastening on their way to the widespread crust of the formation, “I
do think Betsy might be more appreciative of her advantages. Almost any
one else would value more the privilege of a visit to the Yellowstone.”
“Yes,” returned Irving dryly, “and the more the other one appreciated
it, the less she’d lend you her golf-cape.”
Mrs. Bruce looked at him. “You always take Betsy’s part!” she exclaimed.
“I’m only showing you that you chose your companion wisely,” was the
quiet reply. “There, Madama, it’s beginning. Can you sprint?”
Mrs. Bruce could sprint with any girl that lived, and they were soon on
the outskirts of the shivering, eager crowd, and Mrs. Bruce was making
little ineffectual hops in the endeavor to see over and between the
heads of those in front of her. But instantly the fountain shot into
the air and played in the mysterious twilight under a cold pale moon,
and a hush fell upon all.
Betsy had the open fire practically to herself; and she sat before it,
ruminating deeply. It seemed strange to think of Rosalie so near and
yet so far. How she longed to get out into that forbidden department
and lend the aid of her capable hands to whatever work the young girl
was doing. She wondered what a day would bring forth. Possibly she
should not see Rosalie again; and if the girl were sent on with them
to-morrow to the Old Faithful Inn, she knew that the Bruces’ plan was
to remain there for a few days, and there she would doubtless lose her
definitely.
“Mrs. Bruce used to call her her protégée!” she thought. A long
determined breath came from Betsy’s breast. “She’s goin’ to be Betsy
Foster’s protégée now, and I ain’t goin’ to lose sight of her.”
She continued to look thoughtfully into the leaping flames, and even
her practical common sense was not proof against their age-long ability
to show the gazer alluring possibilities.
A certain rough seaman mending his sail in far-off Yankee land little
realized that, could his canvas be turned into a magic carpet, this was
his psychological moment.
“I suppose,” Betsy was reflecting, “’tain’t Mrs. Pogram’s fault that
she hasn’t as much backbone as a jelly-fish.”
A broad, strong flame flew squarely up toward the chimney. “I suppose
if—if I ever was—soft enough—to— Well, Hiram’s a good soul. He’d be
kind as any father to Rosalie.”
Betsy suddenly realized that the fire was making her face hot, and she
put up her hand to shield it.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Hiram Salter was placidly sitting cross-legged over his
prostrate sail. A piece of twine held in his lips fell down each side
of his chin, giving him some resemblance to a gigantic catfish.
A few days later he received a picture-postal from the Fountain House
Hotel in the Yellowstone. It was dated on the evening when Betsy sat so
long before the fire; and it read,—
DEAR H.:
Cold as Xmas here.
B. F.
And the good man never suspected that in reality it had never been as
little cold for him in all his years of courtship as on the evening
when that postal card was bought; and that in place of the curt message
might truly have run a bit from Rosalie Vincent’s repertoire:—
Never the time and the place,
And the loved one, all together.
The next morning dawned bright. If Rosalie was in the breakfast-room,
Betsy did not see her.
When later she entered the back seat of the last stage, Betsy looked
about anxiously. Irving came to the step.
“Mrs. Bruce and Nixie are up there with the driver. I’m coming in with
you,” he said.
“Just wait one minute, Mr. Irving,” returned Betsy. “If—if that
young—waitress is going along with us, she’d feel—sort of embarrassed
if—”
“Well—well,”—Irving looked up into the narrow face and laughed,—“this
is the first time you ever turned me down.”
He looked about. Mrs. Nixon, Miss Maynard, and Mr. Derwent were in the
middle seat as before. The stout gentleman and another man were in the
seat in front of them.
“And you’d put me in there with four hundred pounds of tourist?” went
on Irving. “Nay, nay, Betsy. I’ll get over there in the corner beyond
you and promise to keep my place.”
“Oh, they’re going to start,” said Betsy in trepidation, “and—and she
isn’t here. Couldn’t you get him to wait, Mr. Irving? I—”
Irving swung into the stage as the horses moved.
“My dear Betsy, we’ve ceased to be individuals. We’re part of a
system,” he said as he seated himself beside her. “When the Park
authorities say this stage moves, it moves.”
Betsy leaned back, her lip caught under her teeth and her expression so
abstracted that Irving stared at her curiously.
“I do believe,” he said incredulously, “that Betsy Foster, clever
Betsy, has fallen in love.”
“How you talk!” returned his companion, recovering herself; and being
quite conscious of Rosalie and a little conscious of her fire-lit
fancies, an astonishing color rose under her sallow skin.
Irving laughed. “After all these years, our sedate Betsy—”
“How you act, Mr. Irving!”
The speaker tried not to smile, but continued to look so guilty and
red-faced that Irving’s laughter grew.
“After all these years; the heart that I thought was mine—given to a
heaver!”
“I’d like to have said good-by to her,” said Betsy. “She’s—she ain’t
the—the independent kind—and I—”
Irving looked at her kindly. “How does that big heart of yours find
room in that slender body?” he asked. “Cats and dogs and horses and
humans—it’s all one to you. You’ve taken a brief to defend them all.”
“Oh, Mr. Irving!”—Betsy looked off at the landscape,—“if I could defend
them all!”
“Why that tragic look?”
“Your words made me think again, as I so often do, that in a world full
of so much beauty as this, people are cuttin’ up live animals in the
name of science, and the law permits it.”
Irving shook his head. He had heard before Betsy’s horror-stricken
views of vivisection.
“Human life is the most precious of all,” he reminded her, now.
“Yes, but don’t just as fine physicians as any say that the unnatural
conditions in vivisection prevent any good coming from it? Yes, they
do; and supposing it _did_ do any good! Don’t most civilized people
believe in an after-life? If they’re going to live to eternity anyway,
and have got to pass through death some time, how can they be willing
to have their lives in this world prolonged a few years at the cost of
torturing innocent animals? That’s what I say. How _can_ they—and then
expect any heaven awaits _them_?”
“I haven’t thought much about it,” said Irving.
“Well, think now, then!” returned Betsy. “I know _I_’d rather die any
time than have a live dog cut up on the chance of helping to keep me
here a little longer; and I shouldn’t dare show myself before the Maker
of the dog if I wouldn’t! And everybody who doesn’t vote against it,
and work against it, deserves to see their own pets on the rack. I
guess that would bring it home to them!”
Betsy winked hard as she finished, and Irving patted her slight
shoulder.
“I haven’t the slightest doubt that you’re right, Betsy, but for a few
days we can’t do anything about it; and now let’s talk about something
that makes you happy—heavers, for instance.”
Betsy’s usually inexpressive eyes had a wistfulness in them as she
turned toward the strong face she loved. “I can’t bear to have her any
place where she could be called a heaver!” she responded.
“That young woman must be a wonder,” said Irving. “She’s the first,
I’ll wager, to make a conquest of Betsy Foster in one day!”
“Your mother’s about the only one that ever did that, Mr. Irving.”
Betsy’s eyes fell upon a chipmunk by the roadside, sitting up and
clasping its hands under its chin in the customary admiration of the
stage.
“See that little critter?” she continued. “This girl is just as
innocent as that chipmunk, and knows just as much o’ the ways o’ the
world. It goes by her; and though her heart sort o’ comes up in her
throat, she cheers up under the least kindness and is willin’ to admire
everything and everybody.”
“Well, well! What an impression in one day on my unimpressionable
Betsy!” Irving smiled, genuinely surprised by this unprecedented
interest.
“That girl was the child o’ luxury,” went on his companion,—“lost
everything, parents included, and came to be practically a servant in
the home of a poor relation. Got so persecuted by the attentions of a
skinflint man who wanted her to be _his_ drudge that she ran away, and
somehow drifted into waitin’ on hungry folks in the Yellowstone!”
Irving smiled. “She told a story well, anyway. She has missed her
vocation. Some one ought to tell her the pen is mightier than the knife
and fork.”
“It’s easy to tell the truth,” returned Betsy, nettled by his tone.
Irving laughed. “For Clever Betsy, I do believe; but for most people
always difficult, and usually unsafe.”
“H’m,” returned his companion, “this girl was tellin’ the truth and I
know it.”
Here the stage stopped and the passengers dismounted to see a pool
of great beauty which was out of sight from the road; and when they
returned, Betsy’s abstraction had vanished; and although she evidently
enjoyed Irving’s companionship on the long drive, not another word on
the subject of her companion of yesterday could be elicited from her.
Once Mr. Derwent turned around and met her eyes.
“Where is your young friend?” he asked.
Betsy shook her head. “She didn’t come,” she answered.
They had reached a point where the road forked; and Betsy’s glance was
arrested by a sign placed at the point of divergence. It read:—
“All loose and pack animals take this road.”
Her lips twitched as she turned toward Irving.
“Do you s’pose,” she asked, “that all the loose and pack animals can
read that?”