CHAPTER XIV
THE LOOKOUT
In the comings and goings through the halls and veranda of the charming inn, Irving Bruce managed to lose his stepmother and find Betsy Foster, greatly to the latter’s confusion; for it was time for the evening performance of the geyser.
Irving took his old friend by the arm. “You’re going out there with me, Betsy,” he said.
“Not without Mrs. Bruce, I ain’t.”
“Yes, you are. We’re going to stray in the moonlight together.”
“If you ever had another guess comin’ you’ve got it now, Mr. Irving,” declared Betsy firmly. “You find Mrs. Bruce right off.”
Irving sighed and succumbed. Finding his adorer was an easy matter, and he did so without more ado. They joined the throng that moved toward the geyser, and as good fortune would have it, were in time to find one seat on the benches where Mrs. Bruce and Mrs. Nixon could sit together. Then Irving unostentatiously withdrew, and again catching Betsy by the arm took her a few paces away. The silvery light of the clear moon bathed the cool mountain night.
“What have you decided to do, Betsy?” he asked.
“I suppose you mean Rosalie.”
Irving gave the thin arm an impatient shake.
“Well,” said Betsy coolly, “I haven’t decided.”
“If you don’t do something, I shall.”
“You ain’t qualified,” remarked Betsy curtly.
“Are you?” retorted her companion. “That thing mustn’t be allowed to go on. That waitress business! That lovely flower subjected to orders and winks and tips. I won’t stand it.”
“Well now, you can’t do a thing!” declared Betsy firmly.
“Are you going to?”
“I am, in my own time and way.”
“Does your own time and way include letting Rosalie work the rest of the season?”
“Perhaps,” said Betsy tersely. “You mustn’t interfere, Mr. Irving. You’ll only do harm.”
Irving gave an exclamation. “There is one thing I can do: go away to-morrow. I’m not going to stay here and watch it.”
“But Mrs. Bruce – ” began Betsy, troubled.
“Can do as she pleases,” put in Irving. “I’ll go to Yellowstone Lake and fish till she gets ready to follow.”
“Oh, oh, oh! Mr. Irving!”
The exclamation was of joy, for in the earnestness of their talk Betsy had not noticed the preliminary spurts of water, and now the splendid captive stream burst its bonds and gushed skyward in the moonlight. Its banners of spray hung and floated cloud-like in the breeze; and while they gazed, all at once the pure white flushed to rose, then changed to violet, and presently a gauzy rainbow hung between earth and heaven, a thing of supernatural beauty.
“Do you suppose she is seeing this?” murmured Irving.
“Not a doubt of it,” Betsy replied promptly. She feared that any other answer would send her companion to the commissary department of the inn.
Helen Maynard and Mr. Derwent were together watching the lovely sight when Robert Nixon came upon them. His hands were in his pockets and he was whistling softly, as was his wont when the performance was not cheerfully piercing.
“May I come and stand by the rich lady?” he asked.
The geyser was just disappearing.
“How cold and blank the night seems to have turned!” said Helen pensively.
Robert struck his breast with his doubled fist.
“Cruel maiden!” he ejaculated, “why flout me thus? Say, Miss Maynard,” he continued, in a voice changed to interest, “do you know you can make Uncle Henry hear better than anybody?”
“I have made a study of it,” returned the girl composedly.
Robert gazed at her admiringly. “I think it was downright fine and heroic for Uncle Henry to crush those conspirators and get your shekels for you. He’s going to miss you like his right hand.”
“I hope he will miss me a little.” As she spoke Helen looked up at the fine head set so well on Mr. Derwent’s broad shoulders; at the white mustache, and gray hair, and all the features she knew so well.
“I’ll bet she admires him,” thought Robert, following her gaze to the impassive face. “He’s a winner. If he only had his hearing he’d make us all take notice.”
Robert shook his head with the fleeting sympathy of prosperous youth.
The sightseers began to gravitate toward the hotel, and this trio moved with them.
Within the inn all was warmth and light. A Brobdingnagian corn-popper was produced, and one of the open fires being reduced to the proper condition, a cheerful crackling began as the corn bounded high in its ample prison.
“We’re in the land of bigness, Mrs. Nixon,” said Mrs. Bruce, as they sat at a comfortable distance from the heat.
“Indeed, yes,” returned that lady. “I was just saying to Miss Maynard that apparently the mountains set the pace here.”
As she spoke, Mrs. Nixon looked graciously at her companion, who occupied a neighboring chair.
“Were you, indeed!” thought Mrs. Bruce, amused. “I’m glad you’ve found out you can say something to the girl!”
“Irving,” she said aloud, looking up at her son as he stood, tall and abstracted, staring into the mammoth fire, “why don’t you take Miss Maynard up to the Lookout. There must be a glorious view from there to-night.”
Without moving, Helen lifted her eyes to Irving and met his gloomy regard.
“I doubt if Miss Maynard cares to ascend a perpendicular corduroy road,” he answered. “I’m told it is eight stories up.”
“You might ask her,” remarked the girl herself, with composure.
“Surely,” laughed Mrs. Bruce. “It would be such a simple way of finding out.”
Irving had not the grace to smile. He continued to regard the humble companion of yesterday, the heiress of to-day, without moving.
“Would you?” he asked sententiously.
“Yes,” she replied promptly, and rose.
The proposition was so foreign to Bruce’s mood that it required a noticeable moment for him to pull himself together sufficiently to join the young lady with tolerable grace.
She gave him a comprehending glance as they moved toward the staircase.
“Probably all your life,” she said slowly, “you have done just what you liked. I have never done anything I liked. I am beginning to-night.”
He looked at her in surprise.
“Yes, I know you don’t want to do this, but I do,” she added, “and that’s all I’m going to think of. It’s my turn.”
Mrs. Nixon and Mrs. Bruce followed them with their eyes.
“What a little thing Miss Maynard is,” remarked the latter. “See, she barely reaches Irving’s shoulder. I’ve always said he’d marry some mite of a creature. That’s the way tall men always do, and then giraffes of women have to mate with short ones.”
“I’m sorry Robert wasn’t here,” said Mrs. Nixon coldly. “He would certainly have obliged Miss Maynard with a better grace.”
“Irving is terribly indifferent,” returned Mrs. Bruce complacently. “If I want anything, he’s all alive at once; but when it’s a question of any other woman – ” She finished with a significant gesture.
“I have endeavored,” said Mrs. Nixon, with stateliness, “to inculcate in Robert unvarying courtesy to all women.”
Mrs. Bruce began to grow warm under her ruching. “Yes, dear, I know,” she replied, with a well-done sigh. “It’s so much easier when a man hasn’t distinguished himself especially at college. These football heroes – ” she shook her head regretfully – “they do get spoiled, I admit, and grow careless. Then they reflect very little credit on their bringing-up. Excuse me a moment, Mrs. Nixon, I must speak to Betsy.” And Mrs. Bruce rose gracefully and departed on her fictitious errand rather than sustain her friend’s possible rejoinder.
“For if,” she reflected, “the woman should say anything really against Irving it would spoil the rest of the trip. The idea! He might have treated Miss Maynard outrageously yesterday and Mrs. Nixon wouldn’t ever have noticed it; but to-night she begrudges them a moonlight excursion.”
Mrs. Nixon leaned back in her chair, breathing a little fast as her son and heir approached her.
“Where were you, Robert?” she asked rebukingly.
“Pacing the deck outside. I’ve no ambition to take the leading rôle in a barbecue.”
“It’s not so hot.”
“Well, it’s better now. Where’s Brute?”
Mrs. Nixon’s nostrils dilated. “Your very well-named friend has taken Miss Maynard up to the Lookout,” she returned suavely. “He made it very evident that he went under compulsion. I wished that you had been here.”
“Led him to it, did she?” Robert laughed. “Good for her. I like to see Brute coerced. And girls like to do it. She’s having the time of her life, never fear.”
“I don’t think so. It is a very disagreeable position for a young girl to be put in; and his manner was atrocious.”
“Mother,” Robert shook a sapient finger in her direction, “mother, there won’t be any disagreeable positions for that young lady.”
Mrs. Nixon regarded the speaker attentively.
“She strikes me as a person who has been biding her time,” declared Robert. “At present she has arrived; and although she doesn’t make any fuss about it, that little hand of hers, with no rings on it, is closing around the tail of this giddy old world, and if it doesn’t turn to suit her, I think you’ll find her giving it a twist in the other direction.”
“I’m certainly at a loss to know what you mean, Robert. She has always displayed excellent taste in her position. She has been entirely quiet and docile.”
“Quiet, yes,” replied Robert with a laugh, “but docile! That’s all you know about it. My dear parent, mark my words. Don’t you ever imagine that this is any jeune fille case, needing protection. Miss Helen Maynard is composed of two thirds sand and the other third grit.”
The speaker closed his eyes and nodded his head slowly in a manner to express conviction.
“Well! I had no idea you were such a student of character.”
“Not a bit of it,” returned her son prosaically. “Never see anything till it hits me in the nose.”
“Then I’m very dull,” returned the other with some hauteur, “for no such thing has ever been obvious to me.”
“She’s fetching, oh, yes,” allowed Robert, “and she’ll make other people fetch, too. It cheers me to think she’s making Brute toil up seven flights of log-stairs to look at the moon with her.”
“She will be a success, just because she has herself so well in hand,” declared Mrs. Nixon, unwilling to view this subject lightly. “She is not a beauty, but well-gowned and with her self-possession she will pass for one.”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Robert lightly.
He had thrown himself into Mrs. Bruce’s vacated chair, and there was silence for a span while the two gazed at the fire; then the lady spoke again, tentatively.
“However independent Miss Maynard may be, she will require a chaperon now.”
“Yes, one well trained to follow at heel.”
“Robert, I wish you wouldn’t exaggerate so.”
“Dear me, mamma mia,” looking up in surprise at the impatient tone. “Why should it make you peevish?”
Mrs. Nixon’s reply was dignified. “Because the duty may devolve upon me.”
“Heavens! Why?”
“Well, your uncle Henry is very much attached to the girl. He has a natural interest in her welfare.”
“Has he asked you to look after her?”
“He has suggested that we extend the hospitality of our home to her.”
“Oh, come now!” ejaculated Robert. “When I’m to have a sister, please select a nice pussy one with appealing eyes like – like Hebe the Heaver, for instance.”
“There will be no sister about it,” returned Mrs. Nixon sharply.
“Mamma, mamma!” Her son turned lazily accusing eyes upon her. “Have you ulterior motives? Are you laying any traps for your little Robbie?”
Mrs. Nixon gave a faint laugh in spite of herself.
“My dear, I wish you weren’t quite such a goose. Is it likely that I should expect you to be interested in a combination of sand and grit?”
Robert looked back at the fire. “There’s no telling what a solicitous mother will expect when there are shekels in the balance. It would be a dangerous clash under the same roof, for you know I’m two thirds brass and the other third pure affection, and that’s a mixture akin to dynamite.”
Silence again for a space.
“What are you going to do when we get back to the Hub?” inquired Robert at last.
“We haven’t quite decided, your uncle and I.”
“I’m going to Fairport to sail with Brute.”
“You are? Well then, we shall be tempted to follow. Is it a possible place outside the cottages?”
“Quite so, Brute says. Getting more so every year, because there’s a river flowing into the sea that gives the variety of canoeing. He says the Fairport Inn is getting to be quite dressy.”
“Why shouldn’t we all try it, then?” asked Mrs. Nixon.
“All?”
“Yes, all. It would be the best of ways for us to test Miss Maynard’s suitability. I shall not ask her to live with us without your consent, Robert,” finished Mrs. Nixon solemnly. “The home-circle is sacred.”
CHAPTER XV
AN EXODUS
Whatever interview Miss Maynard and Bruce may have had in the Lookout of the inn, it did not appear to have changed the young man’s mood when later he sought his stepmother.
She was in her bedroom wrapped in a negligée when she admitted him.
“Was it very beautiful?” she asked eagerly.
“Very extensive; yes, fine,” he replied.
“You must take me up there to-morrow, Irving.”
“I don’t think I shall be here to-morrow. That’s what I came to speak to you about.”
“Not be here!” repeated Mrs. Bruce in dismay. “Why, look at this room, Irving.” The speaker indicated the woodsy interior. “Isn’t it perfectly enchanting? I was just asking Betsy if she didn’t feel like a dryad.”
Irving glanced at Betsy, quite slim enough for the rôle, laying out her mistress’s night paraphernalia on a second bed in the opposite corner of the green room. “I was just saying I should like to stay here all summer. What do you mean by to-morrow, Irving?”
“Nothing that need disturb you at all. I hear alluring stories of fishing at the lake. I thought I would go there and wait till you came.”
“Oh, dear!” returned Mrs. Bruce. “Is Nixie going too?”
“I haven’t asked him yet. He may. I’ve seen all I care to see here. Thought I’d come and explain because I might get off before you’re up in the morning.”
“Oh Irving, I don’t know that I want to stay with Mrs. Nixon!” Mrs. Bruce’s tone indicated that she had suddenly found her doll stuffed with sawdust.
“Stay with Betsy and Miss Maynard then. You have an embarrassment of riches.”
“Did you have a pleasant time with Miss Maynard? What is the demure little creature like when she gets off with a man?”
“Why, she gets on with him.”
“Tell me, Irving.”
“She is interesting,” was the unenthusiastic reply. “She finds the situation a little heady, naturally.”
“Well, it’s absurd to see Mrs. Nixon suddenly so exercised about her. It may be catty of me, but I was very glad you took her away.”
“Oh no, she took me away.” Irving’s tone was colorless. While in the Lookout he had brought the conversation round to Rosalie Vincent. He had had a vague notion that this new-fledged heiress might be the maker of Rosalie’s pathway into more congenial surroundings; but he had met cool indifference on the subject.
“Good-night, Madama.” He kissed her forehead. “Good-night, Betsy. If you’re not down to speed the parting guest, I will expect to see you some day on the shore of the lake, hailing me. Have a good time.”
“Oh, Irving!” began Mrs. Bruce, holding open the door he tried to close; but he interrupted.
“Now get your beauty sleep, Madama. It’s all settled. Good-night”; and the door closed.
The moon sailing over the Park sent a stream of light into Irving’s bed-chamber. He watched it move from log to log, from wash-stand to chiffonier, and as it reached each new object he felt a fresh access of impatience at himself for wasting these silent hours.
He had seen Nixie before retiring, and that youth had jumped as joyfully at the fishing scheme as any trout at the fly.
He had warmly declined to divulge his intentions to the family.
“I will leave a note addressed to mother on my table,” he announced. “It will ask forgiveness and tell her that it will be of no use to try to find me.”
“I have told Mrs. Bruce I’m going,” rejoined Irving.
“With what result?”
“Oh, she didn’t like it. She’s crazy about it here.”
“That’s what I say,” returned Robert triumphantly. “There’s nothing like the note on the dresser. It has stood the test of ages.”
And now Irving was wasting his time lying awake and watching the stealing moonlight.
“Coffee never affected me before,” he considered impatiently; then he sat up in bed and punched the unoffending pillows into new shapes and flung himself down on them.
He hoped she was not awake too. He lay quite still for a minute, picturing an aureole of golden hair, pillowed in a shabby room, and stood in awe a minute before the innocence of that childlike face in slumber.
Then he suddenly punched his pillow again, wishing it were the head of one who would presently waken her and call her below stairs to run patiently at the bidding of folk in a ruffianly early-morning mood.
He looked at his watch in the moonlight. The wonder is that his ireful gaze did not stop the repeater at three A. M.
His window commanded the mound of geyserite which made the inn famous. He leaped out of bed on a chance that the view might break the monotony.
Scarcely had he reached the window when, in the lonely loveliness of the night, up sprang the geyser – lowly at first, then higher and higher – like a thing of life, leaping toward the moon, scattering myriad diamonds from its banner of cloud. No artificial light now bathed its beauty. No crowd of humanity encircled it like clustering bees. Alone in the silvery light it mounted and mounted under the brooding stars that knew it so well. They sparkled, and beckoned to the beloved captive, who, holding herself at full height, could not quite reach their kisses, but sank back at last, reflecting their brightness in her tears as she vanished.
“And Rosalie weeps. I know she does,” thought Irving; “and I won’t stay to see it.”
He jumped back into bed.
“It’s a beastly shame that I can’t do anything and nobody else will. Mr. Derwent says she’s a relative, and then goes doddering around and lets her bring him his coffee. When he gets to the lake, I’ll have a few words with him, Betsy or no Betsy. I’m just waiting to see if he means to do anything of his own accord. I wonder if my blood will run as cold as that, when I’m fifty. One thing sure, I shall never dare to fall in love, if just a matter of ordinary humanity can stir me up like this.”
The whack which his long-suffering pillow received as punctuation to this muttered speech was the last for that night. The philanthropist sank to slumber and wakened with a start and a sensation of being too late for something important.
He looked at his watch. It was just half an hour to stage time.
He jumped up, dashed some cold water over his head, pulled on some of his clothes, and stuffed the rest into his suit-case, which closed reluctantly and under the influence of muttered incantations such as may proceed from masculine youth in the anticipation of a stage-ride of twenty miles on an empty stomach.
Irving prided himself on being his own alarm-clock. He had especially requested not to be called, and in a nettled state of mind he finally pulled open his door and nearly tumbled over Betsy, seated in the corridor. Beside her on the floor reposed a tray. Odorous steam was rising from a brown pot thereon. She picked up the tray.
“You’ve got ten minutes,” she said calmly. “Open the door.”
She carried her fragrant burden into the bedroom and set it on the table. Irving would have followed that steam anywhere. He dropped his suit-case and drew up a chair.
“Good fairy!” he exclaimed as she filled his cup and he bit deep into the bread and butter. “Good genius! Betsy, have I ever been ungrateful to you? This ends it!”
She sat composedly, her watch in her hand. “Do chew a little, Mr. Irving.”
He laughed. “Sounds natural,” he said, busily devouring and drinking.
“Time’s up.”
He knew so well that she would give him the limit, that he rose like a shot, and picked up the suit-case.
“But why, Betsy,” examining her as they fled, “why are you hatted and suited in so finished a manner?”
“Because we’re goin’ with you,” replied Betsy equably.
“What? Why?”
“Because Mrs. Bruce didn’t sleep any, and neither did Mrs. Nixon; and we’re all goin’.”
There was no further time for talk. Irving had had the forethought to pay his bill the night before, and when he and Betsy stepped into the last stage it had all the familiar appearance of previous days except that no waitress was shrinking in a corner like a violet striving to hide beneath its leaves.
“Here we are,” said Robert cheerfully. “United we stand, divided we fall. We’re all going fishing.”
“Irving, come here.”
Mrs. Bruce made room for him beside her, and the stage started. She was pale, and had made no effort to get the driver’s seat, where Miss Maynard and Robert had climbed at Mrs. Nixon’s suggestion.
“Let some one sit up there who has had a wink of sleep,” Mrs. Bruce had said sepulchrally. “If I owned that inn, Irving Bruce, I would sell it for twenty-five cents.”
“Well well!” responded her son, so fortified by coffee and bread and butter, eaten where he was not obliged to look upon a captive maid, that he could smile. “I thought the inn was enchanting you into remaining all summer.”
“H’m!” ejaculated Mrs. Bruce. “It may be very fascinating by day; but by night it is Hades, nothing less – not a whit less.” And the speaker shook her head as one who should say that hours of argument would not persuade her to abate a jot of her denunciation. “Did you sleep any, Irving?”
“Why – not much. I think it must have been the coffee. You overdid it too, eh?”
“Coffee!” Mrs. Bruce glared palely at the suggestion. “There were two men in the room next to us. Logs between – nothing but logs. Irving, wouldn’t anybody with any sense or forethought have cemented between those logs?”
“So picturesque,” murmured Irving.
“Don’t let me ever hear the word again,” gasped Mrs. Bruce. “They said it all night. Didn’t they, Betsy?”
“You said so, ma’am.”
“That’s it. I kept asking Betsy if she was awake. Didn’t I, Betsy?”
“Yes’m.”
“And she knows how they talked. They went out every hour – every hour, all night, Irving.” Mrs. Bruce made the repetition with an impressiveness mere print is powerless to convey. “Went to see the geysers and then slammed back into their room to talk about them. Oh!!”
“Too bad, Madama! You’re quite tired out. Now just rest a while. Don’t trouble to talk.”
“And the radiator, Irving.” Mrs. Bruce had not yet relieved her mind. “It cracked all night. The apparatus must be put in wrong. I called Betsy’s attention to it several times. She’ll remember.”
Miss Foster looked as if the memory of the night was liable to remain for some time as green as the room Mrs. Bruce had waked in.
“The hotel should be thoroughly done over,” declared Mrs. Bruce, “the walls chinked with cement and the steampipes looked to, or else in common honesty a placard should be nailed up, reading: ‘For show only!’ If ever I was grateful for anything, it is that you had planned to go this morning, anyway. I shouldn’t have had the force to argue or persuade you.”
Irving thought of his own nocturnal perambulations, and turned toward the seat behind, where Mrs. Nixon was seated with her brother.
Her countenance wore a forbidding expression.
“Were you unfortunate also?” he asked.
“Really, Mr. Bruce,” she replied with deliberate distinctness, “I should not expect it to be a matter of general interest if I had been. Perhaps you remember what Emerson says apropos of retailing woes of that character to one’s morning companions. I quite agree with him.”
Having thus delivered herself, the lady’s lips closed in the curves of beauty which nature had bestowed upon them, and she again gave her attention to the landscape.
Mrs. Bruce made a grimace as she met her son’s amused eyes.
“Now,” she thought, “I suppose she thinks she is even with me for last evening.”
Mr. Derwent, unconscious of injuring his sister’s effect, addressed Mrs. Nixon.
“You look done up, Marion. I am sorry you passed such a disturbed night.”
Mrs. Bruce pressed Irving’s arm and gave him a malicious side glance.
“You should all be equipped like myself for traveling,” continued Mr. Derwent rather grimly, “and take off your ear when you go to bed.”
“Poor gentleman,” thought Betsy. “How gladly he would lie awake to hear his neighbors, and if he could listen to the radiators snap, it would be music to him, I’ve no doubt.”
She glanced around at him. He had his hands crossed on the head of his stick in his usual posture.
“I wonder if I’ll ever dare talk to him! He looked so kind at Rosalie yesterday. If the fish bite good, perhaps Mr. Irving’ll forget her. Here’s hopin’ they will! I meant to have a real good visit with the child to-day. I must send her a card when we stop for lunch.”
At the Thumb, Betsy had a chance to do this.
As soon as Mrs. Bruce discovered that they might make the remainder of their trip by water, she urged it.
“I would just as lief go separately from Mrs. Nixon,” she said to her son, “until she has had a night’s sleep. Find out, Irving, whether they’re going by boat.”
It proved that all the places on the boat had been engaged, and as soon as Mrs. Bruce discovered this, her desire to proceed in that way was augmented; and many were the alterations she suggested in a management which contained possibilities of such poignant disappointment as hers.
Mrs. Nixon preserved a magnificent silence; but looked graciously upon her child, whose sallies appeared to have amused Miss Maynard out of her habitual demureness.
“They seem to get on very well together,” she remarked to her brother at a moment when they were alone.
He nodded. “Helen dares be a girl again,” he announced. “There is a great weight off her mind. Her cheeks seem to have grown plump over night.”