FACE TO FACE
THE ladies had left their wagon, to move about and break the long drive
by the view of the Riverside Geyser in action. As they approached their
friends, Mrs. Nixon put up her lorgnette.
“Isn’t that my brother sitting there on the grass?” she asked.
“Certainly it is, and there are the boys,” rejoined Mrs. Bruce with
satisfaction, hastening her steps.
Behind them followed Betsy Foster and Miss Maynard.
“To whom is Henry talking?” asked Mrs. Nixon. “Why,—why, Mrs. Bruce!
I never knew him to do anything so strange! It’s that waitress—that
waitress that came on with us in the stage.”
“I didn’t notice her,” returned Mrs. Bruce. “I was always sitting in
front.”
“She has waited on us at the hotels,” said Mrs. Nixon, and her tone
grew colder. “Men are so thoughtless. I liked the girl so much. I was
seriously thinking of making an arrangement with her for the fall—”
Here, as they had come within speaking distance, Mrs. Nixon’s lips
closed. Mr. Derwent’s necessarily devoted attitude as he now tried to
catch something Rosalie was saying settled the matter with Mrs. Nixon,
and lost the girl her chance of an assured winter home.
Mrs. Bruce stared curiously at the bare golden head; and Miss Maynard
and Betsy, following, descried Mr. Derwent and the waitress at the same
moment.
“Rosalie!” said Helen Maynard, under her breath.
“Do you know her?” asked Betsy, in surprise.
“Yes. We were at school together.”
Betsy’s footsteps quickened, for she felt vaguely that Rosalie might
indeed need protection now.
Mrs. Bruce began speaking with her usual energy.
“I’m so glad we’re in time, Irving. I told that driver if he didn’t
get us back at the right moment to see this geyser play, he’d never be
forgiven. We’ve been to the oddest place called Biscuit Basin; a great
pool just covered with nicely browned biscuit. It made one hungry to
look at them. But the hot water we splashed through to get there! I
shall be boiled yet in this place.”
The moment Rosalie caught sight of Mrs. Bruce, she sprang to her feet
with supple swiftness. Mr. Derwent deliberately arose and met his
sister’s disapproving eyes imperturbably. He put on the hat which for
coolness he had been holding on his knee.
Rosalie flushed and paled and met Betsy’s eyes so entreatingly that the
latter stepped forward by her employer’s side.
At that moment Mrs. Bruce for the first time gave her attention to the
young girl.
“Why!” she said, and hesitated.
Irving knew that she was trying to place the memory of an individual
who had once interested her.
“It is Miss Rosalie Vincent, Madama,” he said quietly. “She surprised
me a few minutes ago.”
“It _is_ Rosalie,” said Mrs. Bruce; and approaching, she shook hands
with the girl she had befriended. In the same moment her alert mind
recalled all that Mrs. Nixon had just said.
A waitress. The waitress who had traveled in their stage. The waitress
with whom Betsy had talked yesterday.
Her manner cooled. The pupils of her eyes narrowed.
“I am surprised to see you here,” she said.
“I knew you would be,” was all the girl could answer, and her face
burned.
Betsy spoke. “You wondered where her wings would carry her, Mrs. Bruce,
and now you see. Good strong wings, you’ll agree, to go ’way across the
continent.”
Rosalie lifted her eyes to her friend.
Mr. Derwent could not hear what was being said, but he gathered from
the attitude of his sister and Mrs. Bruce and the painful crimson of
Rosalie’s face, that some arraignment was taking place.
“I suppose even the best of women are cats at heart,” he reflected;
then he spoke aloud. “Miss Vincent and I have been making discoveries.
Her father was a connection of our family, and on the Glee Club with me
at college.”
“Henry!” Mrs. Nixon seized the rubber disk that hung at his vest and
spoke across it firmly. “I have just heard a man say that the geyser
is beginning to play. Let us go closer to the bank.”
She took her brother’s arm and led him away. Mrs. Bruce did the same
with Irving, who exchanged one glance with Betsy over her head as he
yielded.
Robert followed with Miss Maynard, and Betsy put her arm around Rosalie.
“Now then, that’s over,” she said.
The girl’s eyes were still dilated and she did not speak.
Betsy gave her a gentle shake. “Brace up, Rosalie. Don’t be such
a trembling little bird. Your soul’s your own.—Oh, my! Isn’t that
wonderful!” For the geyser now burst forth with a rushing volume of
water which rose and arched across the river at a height of eighty feet.
Betsy and Rosalie hastened down the bank beyond the crowd, where they
had a full view of the aerial waterfall sparkling in the sunshine as it
plunged foaming into the river.
When the exhilarating show was over, Betsy turned to her companion.
“There! Ain’t that worth a good bit o’ sacrifice to see?”
The girl’s hands were clasped on her breast, and her eyes shining.
“You look as admirin’ as a chipmunk,” said Betsy; and they both laughed.
“Oh, supposing we were alone out here, Betsy! Wouldn’t it be
beautiful!” sighed the girl.
“’Twould, as sure as you’re born; but we ain’t bondholders, so we have
to work our way, both of us; and it’s worth it. That’s what I say, and
that’s what I want you to feel.”
“I wouldn’t mind if no one else minded,” said Rosalie meekly.
“Don’t mind, anyway,” returned Betsy stoutly. “That’s what I was just
sayin’. Your soul’s your own—”
“But she spent so much money on me.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know; but if I could pay it back, and needn’t care how her
eyes look—”
“Very likely you will pay her some day. Meanwhile keep a stiff upper
lip. Don’t act as if you’d done anything wrong, ’cause you haven’t.”
“I’m not clever,” mourned Rosalie. “Look at Helen Maynard. See what she
has done. She was a poor girl, too. She was older than I, and we seldom
met at school; but she studied practical things. I was so happy, and
my teachers so delightful, but what did it fit me for?”
“Nothin’, and I knew it,” responded Betsy bluntly.
“It made life brighter and fuller,” said Rosalie, and her eyes looked
away to where Betsy knew she could not follow. Her old idea of the
princess in exile returned upon her with force as she gazed at the
girl, for Rosalie drew herself up unconsciously; leafy shadows lay
in her pensive eyes and brocaded her white gown, while an arrow of
sunlight gilded the braided coronet of her hair.
“Although I went back to washing Mrs. Pogram’s dishes, I didn’t live
in that kitchen,” she went on softly. “There were great fields—green
fields and pastures new, where my thoughts went roving.”
They both kept silence for a space; then Rosalie came back from her
short day-dream and met her friend’s eyes. “I don’t think I have a bad
disposition?” she said questioningly.
“I’ve never seen any signs of it,” returned Betsy dryly.
“There are moments when I wish I had borne with Loomis. One of them was
when Mr. Derwent said he had known my father; and Mrs. Nixon looked at
me from such a lofty height!” The girl’s cheeks burned again.
Betsy heaved a quiet sigh. “There’s only one thing the matter with you,
Rosalie.” As she spoke, Betsy ran her fingers down the girl’s backbone,
and the latter squirmed away. “It’s your spine.”
“What’s the matter with it?” asked Rosalie, startled.
“I don’t know; but ’tain’t stiff enough.” Betsy smiled faintly into her
companion’s puzzled face. “Seems sort o’ tough to be born a vine, and
then not be given a thing to cling to.” She shook her head. “You was
born a vine, Rosalie, and now that the supports have been pulled out,
you can either trail along the ground where every passer-by is likely
to step on you, or you can reach around till you find a new support for
yourself.”
She paused, and Rosalie looked troubled and thoughtful.
“Vines ain’t left altogether helpless,” went on Betsy. “They’re
given lots o’ tendrils, and they lay hold o’ the queerest and most
unpromising things sometimes and begin to pull themselves up.”
“But who wants to be a parasite!” exclaimed Rosalie. “They destroy!”
“A wholesome vine only benefits,” answered the other; “and it mustn’t
be content with shrinkin’ along the ground and invitin’ everybody to
step on it, and hurt it. Even a vine has its own sort of backbone, its
own power, and it hasn’t a thing to fear. It’ll find its place to climb
if it looks up and not down.”
“There’s one trellis I wish I could have,” said Rosalie wistfully,
gazing at her friend, “and its name is Betsy Foster.”
“Come now, Rosalie; that’s pretty hard.” The older woman’s lips
twitched. “I’ve got some flesh on my bones.”
“O Betsy! Dear Betsy!” burst forth the girl lovingly. “Clever Betsy, as
Captain Salter calls you.”
“You know Hiram, do you?”
“Yes, indeed; and when I first came to Fairport,—it was the winter
before Mrs. Bruce sent me to school,—he told me about you, and told me
you’d be there in summer with this rich family, and that if I could get
you for a friend it would be the best thing that could happen to me;
and it has been, Betsy—except that it did give me that bitter-sweet
school experience.” The girl put her arm around her companion. “Captain
Salter told me so much about you—how you had always managed to do for
people in the village. He thinks you’re a wonder.”
Miss Foster started to speak, but changed her mind and merely grunted.
Then, after a silent moment of endurance of the girl’s embrace, she
changed the subject.
“Unwind that tendril now,” she said, taking Rosalie’s hand and moving
her away; “and be careful, child, who you do reach out to,” she added
seriously.
“Oh, are you going, Betsy?” exclaimed the girl, troubled.
The woman hesitated. “You let me go tell Mrs. Bruce that I’ll walk back
to the hotel so they won’t wait for me. They’re probably all in the
wagon by this time, and wonderin’ where I am.”
“I’ll wait right here,” returned Rosalie eagerly, and she stood
watching Betsy’s retreating figure with wistful eyes.
Miss Foster presented herself in the group who were waiting for the
carriage, and announced to Mrs. Bruce her wish to walk back to the
hotel.
[Illustration: BETSY! DEAR BETSY!]
“With that girl, I suppose,” said Mrs. Bruce, scorn in her voice. “Do
as you please, Betsy. I’ve certainly had one more lesson in letting
well enough alone. It is likely she never would have grumbled with her
bread and butter and left Mrs. Pogram, if I had not been the means of
putting ideas into her head. I’m obliged to admit that you were right,
Betsy, when you talked to me about it a few weeks ago.” Mrs. Bruce gave
a little sigh. “I wish I weren’t so warm-hearted and impulsive. Doesn’t
it lead one into lots of trouble, Mrs. Nixon?”
Mrs. Nixon was of the opinion that it did; and she still held by the
arm a victim of misguided emotion. Irving and Robert had disappeared.
“Come home in the carriage with us, Henry,” she said to her captive.
“There will be a vacant place now.”
There was still wandering upon the river bank among the overhanging
trees a golden-haired dryad, whose presence caused the lady to desire
the sanctuary of the park wagon for her brother until she could have a
few words with him in private.
This she accomplished after they reached the hotel and she had lured
him out upon the large upper veranda, where reclining chairs invited
wanderers to repose in the sunshine.
Mr. Derwent recognized the symptoms of extreme solicitude for his
comfort, and smiles which were like flashes of heat-lightning. His
sister was a woman of much poise, and heat-lightning seldom portends
showers; still they had been known to arrive before the atmosphere
could clear, and he had the ordinary masculine dread of them.
After accepting the chair beside his sister which she offered to him,
he leaned back with every evidence of comfort, and his first words
adroitly changed her aggression to defense.
“You take trifles far too seriously, Marion,” he observed.
She stared, and he smilingly offered her the rubber disk.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
“Oh, yes, you do.”
Mrs. Nixon compressed her lips.
“You misunderstand entirely,” she said at last. “I took a very great
fancy to that young girl.”
“It does you credit, Marion.”
“And you’ve spoiled everything,” she retorted. “I was going to arrange
to have her come to us in Boston.”
“In what capacity?”
“Waitress, of course. And now you’ve made it impossible.”
“It always would have been impossible. I couldn’t think of allowing
Gorham Vincent’s daughter to wait on our table. I highly approve of
having her come to us, however,—the charming creature.”
“What are you thinking of?”
“Why, it seems she has no one belonging to her.”
“Henry!” said Mrs. Nixon sonorously, “the home circle is sacred.”
She was greatly startled; and she looked at the insouciant face and
figure of her brother with repressed exasperation.
“It is a small circle in our case, certainly.”
“Now that Robert is at home, we shall be three,” returned the lady.
It was her house, and her home circle; and even though her wealthy
bachelor brother was its most valuable asset, she did not intend to
cede her rights.
There was a space of silence; then she spoke accusingly again.
“I have been thinking the last week, Henry, that perhaps in bringing
your stenographer on this trip, and making her of use to me also, you
have had it in mind to suggest, on our return, that _she_ remain with
us.”
Mr. Derwent’s eyes were fixed on the landscape. He did not respond at
once, and Mrs. Nixon, looking at him sharply, was in doubt whether to
interpret his silence as a guilty one.
“Marion,” he said at last, “do you often think of Alan?”
“Why—” Mrs. Nixon paused in her surprise at this irrelevancy,—“why,
yes, I do.” It was with an effort that her thought unclasped itself
from the present, to revert to the unfortunate one of the family:
the brother whose every effort to succeed in life had seemed to be
thwarted; whose children had died, and whose own life had suddenly and
unexpectedly closed before he had arrived at middle age.
Mr. Derwent’s lips compressed under his white mustache, and his
nostrils dilated.
Mrs. Nixon observed the change in his face with some dismay. She could
not remember when she had last heard him refer to their sorrow. For the
first time she realized that this was perhaps because it had gone too
deep.
He still kept his gaze ahead as he continued, in detached sentences:
“I never sympathized enough with Alan. I let him fight alone too long.
I criticised when I should have carried him. There is no torture like
that unavailing regret. Yesterday is dead, and repining is weakness.
The only atonement I can make is to look on each individual need that
presents itself before me, and ask myself what I would do now if that
need was Alan’s.”
Mrs. Nixon was silent; her folded hands tightened. She was beholding an
unsuspected wound, hidden always beneath her brother’s imperturbable
exterior; and the apparition held her tongue-tied.
They both kept silence while the shadow crept along the veranda rail.
At last Mr. Derwent spoke again in his ordinary manner, and with
deliberation.
“I have had some such thought as you suspect concerning Helen Maynard.”
“Is the girl friendless? Where has she been living?” returned Mrs.
Nixon defensively, conscious that when this subdued moment had passed,
she should find a hundred embarrassments in the prospect of housing her
brother’s stenographer.
“She has been living in a boarding-house. She has grandparents on a
farm in the country.”
Mrs. Nixon maintained an ominous silence. Her brother changed his
position, and an odd look of amusement grew in his averted eyes.
“I have made up my mind to tell you what has been a secret up to now,
Marion.”
This quiet sentence sent a stream of color over his companion’s face;
evidence of a shock that sent a wild throng of thoughts careering
through her brain.
Horrors! What was coming now? Her brother, whose fortune, as everybody
knew, was to go to Robert; her brother, whose affliction made him
averse to society! Could such a thing be as that this very narrowing of
his social life had thrown him back on the society and sympathy of the
neat, well-groomed girl, who was his right hand at the office.
Why, of course! and Mrs. Nixon called herself imbecile for never having
feared it. She reproached herself wildly for not having provided
better for his recreation. More card-parties, more reading aloud; more
sympathy in the travel-lectures he enjoyed. Oh, fool that she had been!
Probably he had escorted Miss Maynard to those very lectures, and she
had elucidated the pictures.
It took but a moment of time for all these considerations to tear
across Mrs. Nixon’s mind, and he added:—
“I think it is time now to speak of it.”
With haunting visions of card-games never played, she responded
unsteadily:—
“Pray do.”
Mr. Derwent pressed his finger-tips lightly together.
“Before I engaged Helen,” he began, “she had engaged me.”
Mrs. Nixon leaned back in her chair under pressure of faintness.
“Her grandparents came to me as a well-known lawyer and engaged me to
undertake her cause in a lawsuit regarding a large fortune. I have been
working on it for a long time, and success is in sight. The girl was
being sensibly educated, and so at last it came about that I took her
into the office for the convenience of us both.”
Mrs. Nixon’s face was a study; but her mind was not yet relieved.
“Miss Maynard is an heiress?” she asked.
“There is no doubt of it now. The red tape has been all measured off,
and only a few matters of form are left before she comes into her own.”
Mrs. Nixon sat in silence for a time.
“You know her so much better than I do, Henry,” she said at last,
tentatively.
“Yes,” Mr. Derwent gave a quiet exclamation. “She is an excellent piece
of mechanism. Her mind is as well ordered as her toilet. Not a hair out
of place.”
The speaker’s manner and tone reassured his sister so far that she
could give her thought to consideration of the girl in this new light,
and to wondering what impression her own treatment had made upon her.
Miss Maynard’s opinion would now be of importance. Mrs. Nixon was
grateful that _noblesse oblige_, and that she could never be less than
courteous to an inferior; a great convenience when one considers that
an inferior sometimes surprises with as sudden a rise into prominence
as is accomplished by a jack-in-the-box.
“And your idea, Henry—” she asked again.
“Was simply,” he answered, “that in her changed circumstances Helen
will require the guidance of some older woman. There will be no ‘back
to the farm’ for her, and I suspect that the old people will not wish
to change their manner of living.”
“Will she have very much?”
Mr. Derwent nodded. “Enough to make me glad her head is so level.”
“She must be exceedingly attached and very grateful to you,” said Mrs.
Nixon, after a thoughtful pause, during which she tried to remember
just how repressive her manner had been to her quiet companion.
“She doesn’t need to be grateful. She pays me. Helen is not impulsive.”
“You mean she has a cold nature,” returned Mrs. Nixon. “I do think,
Henry, you might have told me all this when we started out on this
trip.”
He shook his head. “It is because of a forwarded telegram which I
received here this noon that I tell you now.”
Mrs. Nixon thought again.
“And you would like her to live with us,” she said thoughtfully.
“I only suggest it. I thought if you liked her—but Helen may have other
views.”
“I see,” returned Mrs. Nixon slowly, “I see.” And she rocked in her
chair with reflections wherein her lost waitress was forgotten.