MRS. BRUCE’S HEADACHE
“BE it ever so humble,” said Mrs. Bruce, “there’s no place like home!”
She was standing again on the veranda of her summer cottage, where
Betsy was airing and beating pillows.
“Pretty good place,” agreed Betsy. “I’m glad I ain’t goin’ to see a
trunk for months; but—” she hesitated unwontedly, and then continued,
“I’d like to go to Boston for a couple o’ days, Mrs. Bruce, if you can
spare me.”
“Dear me, when we’ve just arrived?”
“The cook’s all right, and you’ve got Mr. Irving and his friend both
here—”
“A lot of good they are,” retorted Mrs. Bruce. “They’ve lived with
Captain Salter ever since we came.”
Betsy said nothing. Mrs. Bruce had the uncomfortable realization which
seized her at times that, although her None-such went through the form
of asking her permission, she would in fact do exactly what she thought
best.
“It’s such a queer thing for you to want to do, Betsy,” she continued,
“to go back into the heart of the city immediately. Of course Mrs.
Nixon felt obliged to stay a few days with Miss Maynard, to order some
gowns—”
“Do you want to send her any word?”
“Yes, I promised to look at the rooms at the inn and see what they had.”
“Can’t I do that for you?” asked Betsy.
“Why, yes, I wish you would.”
“I can go this afternoon just as well as not,” remarked Betsy quietly.
“Don’t it beat all, the way things come round all right if you just
don’t fidget?” she thought.
The middle of the afternoon found her on the way to the pretty inn, set
on a slight rise of ground above the river. Mr. Beebe, the proprietor,
was a Fairport man, an old friend of Betsy’s, whose provincial ideas
had for years been in process of changing and forming by contact
with the summer people for whom he catered; and what had once been a
barn-like structure known as the Fairport Hotel, now showed as a modern
inn, with verandas and a pretense to fashion.
Mr. Beebe welcomed Betsy with effusion, rallied her on her travels
and her worldly experience, and at last settled down to listen to her
business.
When finally she arose to go, he remarked:—
“Well, seems if there wasn’t any end to the new-fangled notions a
feller’s got to listen to and adopt to keep up with the times. I
haven’t forgot how clever you were to my wife when she was sick a
couple o’ years ago, and I don’t like to turn down anything you ask of
me.”
“I appreciate your kindness, Sam, but you ain’t goin’ to lose money by
this plan. You know we are all pretty proud o’ the Inn. If Mrs. Bruce
wasn’t she’d never a recommended it to the Nixons. They’re folks that
are used to the best; and we’d like to see it have all the attractions
any resort has. Mark my words, you’ll thank me for this, instead o’ me
you, though I ain’t underratin’ your good feelin’. Good-by, Sam.”
Clever Betsy left the place with a springing step.
She found her mistress in a rather injured frame of mind when she
reached the cottage. It wore upon the lady that the None-such was going
to desert her post for two days.
“That’s the worst of having a person like Betsy,” she thought; “one
gets so dependent. It’s humiliating. I feel just like asking her not to
go, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that.”
So Mrs. Bruce compromised by being silent and wearing an abused air.
“Once in a while Betsy will do a real selfish thing,” she reflected;
and she demanded of memory to stand and deliver the last occasion when
her housekeeper had displayed base ingratitude. Memory appearing to
find the task difficult, she resorted to deep sighs and an ostentatious
headache.
Betsy was amused, but also somewhat touched.
“She ain’t anything but a child, never was, and never will be,” she
thought. “You can’t get out of a barrel what ain’t in it.”
She told her mistress of the pleasant rooms at the inn available
because of having suddenly been given up by their usual occupants.
“I’ll go see Mrs. Nixon and tell her about ’em,” she added. “Mr.
Beebe’s promised to hold ’em till Wednesday.”
Mrs. Bruce put her hand to her forehead, but apparently was too far
gone, sunk among her cushions, to reply.
“I think it would be real nice for you to do a lot o’ sailin’ while I’m
gone,” said Betsy cheerfully.
“That’s just about as considerate as you are!” returned Mrs. Bruce,
with remarkable fire for one in the languorous stage of headache. “You
know very well that at the best of times I don’t care very much for
sailing.”
“I thought with Mr. Irving and Cap’n Salter both, you felt real safe,
and enjoyed it,” said Betsey pacifically; and Mrs. Bruce had sundry
disconcerting memories of hiking hilariously with her hand on her boy’s
shoulder.
“Don’t you suppose,” she said with a superior air, “that I ever make a
pretense of enjoying things for Irving’s sake?”
Betsy’s lips twitched. “You acted so natural you took me in,” she
returned meekly.
Mrs. Bruce sank back again among her pillows.
“I’ll make out a list for all the meals while I’m gone,” said Betsy
comfortingly, “and give it to the cook. You see, Mrs. Bruce, one o’ my
friends that’s lived in the country and is very inexperienced, wants to
get a few clothes in the city. She don’t know where to go or what to
pay, and I told her I’d come in for a couple o’ days and help her. You
won’t scarcely miss me before I’m back.”
“I must say, Betsy,” declared her mistress faintly, “some people would
have waited until there was no guest in the house.”
“I’m real sorry I can’t wait,” returned Betsy gently; “but I’m goin’ to
arrange for the meals, as I say, so you won’t have a mite o’ trouble,
and Mr. Nixon always makes everything jolly.”
Mrs. Bruce made no reply, and Betsy left the room.
Going out on the street, she heard a piercing whistle down the street,
executing a classic which would inspire a bronze image to cake-walk.
Betsy did not attempt any fancy steps, but she started on a long,
energetic stride in the direction of the shrill ragtime.
She waved her hand with a gesture which she knew would check Robert’s
effervescence.
He waved his cap in return.
“Where’s Mr. Irving?” she asked as soon as he could hear her.
“He’s helping Cap’n Salter with the sail. They didn’t appreciate my
services, so I came away.”
“I just wanted to tell you, Mr. Nixon, that I’m goin’ to Boston.”
“Giddy creature! The whirl of the city drawing you so soon?”
“I’m goin’ to tell your mother what rooms there are at the inn, and if
you have any message—”
“I have. Tell her it’s great here, and to let me know as soon as she’s
through using the car, because I want to bring it down—or up.”
“I will. Say, Mr. Nixon,”—they were strolling toward the house, Betsy
hanging back unaccountably,—“I hope you and Mr. Irving’ll be sort of
attentive to Mrs. Bruce for a couple o’ days.”
“Sure thing. I’m eternally attentive to her. What’s up?”
“Well—she doesn’t like to have me go; has the habit of me, you know;
and I’ve got to go, that’s all there is about it.”
“Sad! sad!” ejaculated Robert. “Frightful thing—habit. You seemed so
mild out in the Yellowstone I hadn’t an idea you couldn’t endure the
quiet of the country a week.”
“Now I’m relyin’ quite a lot,” said Betsy, “on your foolishness.”
“What?” inquired the young man, his voice breaking.
“Mrs. Bruce can impose on Mr. Irving—I mean,—you know what I mean, she
can make him fall in with her moods; while you—well, you’re just as
good as a rattle to—”
“Betsy,—now, Betsy, beware! I have average poise, I hope, still I’m
only human. My head can be turned!”
Betsy smiled. “I don’t know as I exactly make you understand what I
mean—”
“Oh, yes, you do. Your meaning is as clear as clear limping water.
Please don’t be any more definite or I may burst into tears; and it’s
in every etiquette book that I ever read, that it isn’t proper to make
the company cry.”
“Yes, that’s the way,” said Betsy with satisfaction. “Just chatter to
her like that, and she’ll—”
“Betsy! Cruel one! How can I impress you!”
“Now listen,”—they were drawing near the house—“Mrs. Bruce’ll act sick
when you go in. I don’t mean she’s actin’, but she don’t like things to
go the way she hasn’t planned ’em; and she’s a real dependent little
lady, and you and Mr. Irving must keep her as happy as a lark while
I’m gone. I’ve got to get off early in the mornin’, and I may not get
a chance to see him alone at all; so you tell him I’m real sorry, and
I’ll hurry back, and you take her with you everywhere, and look out
for her and—and I’m goin’ around this back way. She’s right in the
livin’-room. You’ll find her.”
Betsy disappeared with guilty haste, and Robert, smiling to himself and
whistling softly, mounted the steps.
“Once there was a book,” he thought, “named ‘Pink and White Tyranny.’
Madama’s an anachronism. She belongs in it.”
He presented himself cap in hand at the door of the room where Mrs.
Bruce lay motionless on a thickly pillowed divan.
“Any admittance?” he asked.
The sufferer stirred. “Is that you, Nixie?” she returned faintly.
He advanced to the divan. “Dear me, what’s this? You were so fit this
morning.”
“Oh, I’ve been quite upset.”
“You look it. Absolutely knocked down. Nothing serious, I hope?”
“Where’s Irving?”
“Mending a sail with Captain Salter. They were so disrespectful to me
that I came home.”
“I’m very poor company, I’m afraid,” said the hostess languidly.
“But at least you appreciate me, Mrs. Bruce. You don’t hurt my feelings
every second word you utter. Mayn’t I sit here by you,”—the speaker
took a chair close to the divan,—“and rub your head, perhaps? My mother
will tell you I’m a cracker-jack at it.”
Mrs. Bruce gave an inarticulate exclamation of dissent.
“I should expect you to rub my hair off,” she exclaimed faintly.
“It doesn’t look like that kind,” returned Robert innocently.
Her eyes were closed, but she could feel his, brightly curious, fixed
upon her coiffure.
“You make me nervous, Nixie. Would you mind taking a book?”
“A thousand pardons, dear hostess! Of course I will. I did just want to
ask your advice about the car, though.”
“What car?” Mrs. Bruce’s eyes opened.
“Ours. I think when mother gets through dressing Miss Maynard, we’d
better have it here. Don’t you?”
“The roads are excellent,” replied the prostrate one.
“Of course it’s Uncle Henry’s car, but it’s all in the family.”
“We haven’t one, just now,” said Mrs. Bruce. “We sold it when we went
to Europe; and Irving is such a merman we thought we wouldn’t do
anything about a new one till we went back to town.”
“I suppose you have an electric for yourself,” said Robert.
“I’m going to have one as soon as we get back. I’ve always thought I
was too timid to drive it, but of late I’ve come to feel that I don’t
like to be the only woman that hasn’t one.”
“Oh, you are just the person to drive an electric,” said Robert,
his eyes twinkling as Mrs. Bruce unconsciously raised herself to a
sitting posture among the pillows. “You’ll spin down to the bank every
afternoon and bring Brute home.”
“I really do think you’re right, Nixie,” returned his hostess
plaintively. “I have a very cool head, and it’s all nonsense that I
couldn’t drive an electric even in the Boston cowpaths, while in the
Parks—”
“Oh, my dear Mrs. Bruce, never think that Brute will accompany you
there!”
“Why not?” The question had all the usual crispness.
“Such a stately method of locomotion will not commend itself for his
sportive hours. What car does he think of getting?”
The question opened a flood-gate; and for the next fifteen minutes,
talk of pros and cons regarding different high-class motors snapped
with an ever-increasing vivacity in the erstwhile chamber of suffering.
Once Betsy came near the door and listened.
“But _that_ car doesn’t have to be cranked,” she heard her mistress
declare in bright tones.
She nodded with satisfaction and ran upstairs to put her belongings in
a suit-case.