Betsy and the Great World / Betsy's Wedding Page 10

  She drew her belongings closer—suit cases, umbrella, camera, and Complete Pocket Guide. She gripped her purse and waited.

  It seemed like an eternity, although it was just half an hour later by the loudly ticking clock, when the door swung open and Mr. Brown came in, looking like a tweedy angel. He sat down beside her, folding his gloved hands on top of his cane.

  “What are you doing here?” Betsy asked tremulously.

  He grinned at her. “Looking after you. You need to get a berth, and you never could do it alone. After I got to my hotel I realized that if I didn’t see you on that train, I’d have it to worry about all the rest of my life.”

  “Oh, Mr. Brown!” cried Betsy. “How kind you are!”

  “Kind nothing! Pure selfishness! May I smoke?”

  They did a lot of visiting in the hour and a half before the train arrived. Betsy told him about Miss Surprise, and her own plans for seeing the world. She told him about Minneapolis. He had never been there and he, too, was interested in Minnehaha Falls. She told him about the Rays.

  “What you’ve done for me…that’s just what my father would have done. He’ll appreciate it awfully. He’ll write a letter to thank you, if you’ll give me your address.”

  “I have a card somewhere,” he said, and fished in his pockets but he didn’t bring one out. He didn’t tell her much about himself. He didn’t mention his home. Perhaps he, like Mr. O’Farrell, left his family behind when he went traveling.

  “Are you married?” Betsy asked suddenly. It was apropos of skiing technique and not very subtle, but she didn’t care. It was a question she planned to ask freely from now on.

  Her frankness went unrewarded, for just at that moment the ticket window was flung up. Mr. Brown ran to get his place, and he spent a fevered fifteen minutes with the agent. He beckoned for her money and changed some to French gold. He got her a berth, and that wasn’t easy. She could tell by his emphatic German and the way he was waving bills around.

  “And I’ve found an English-speaking porter. He’ll look after you.” They ran for the train. It was moving when he jumped off. She had to shout her thanks.

  “I don’t know your address…and my father…”

  “Never mind!” he said, and waved.

  She was sleeping before they were out of Zurich.

  The German customs officer came in, in the middle of the night. Betsy unlocked her suit cases and fell asleep again before he had finished with them. But in that short moment of wakefulness, she remembered Mr. Brown.

  How heavenly kind he had been! This berth! She never could have managed it without him.

  “You don’t know how kind people are until you go traveling,” she thought. “Travel is very broadening.”

  9

  Miss Surprise’s Surprise

  WHEN BETSY CAME BACK TO her room after her first supper in the Pension Geiger in Munich, she shut the door behind her firmly, turned up the gas, walked to a capacious old-fashioned desk at the left of the window, and took Mr. O’Farrell’s map out of a pigeonhole.

  Lips quivering, she went to her bureau for pins, unfolded the map, and affixed it to the wall.

  “Six days from Munich to New York,” read the slogan across the top.

  Only six days!

  “I could be home next Sunday. I could be home for some of Papa’s onion sandwiches. Maybe I will be, too! Nobody’s making me stay here.”

  She took off the maroon silk dress which had been so completely wrong at the pension supper table and hung it in the huge dark wardrobe. She put on her bathrobe, and stood stiff and straight, looking defiantly around the empty room. Then with a wail she flung herself across the bed.

  Surprise checked her tears, for she sank down alarmingly. But when she realized that it was only because of a feather bed, she kept on crying. Clutching a pillow, she cried in floods until her face was bathed in tears.

  “I want to go home!” she cried, and kicked the feather bed, which wasn’t much satisfaction because it was so soft and yielding. “I want to go home!”

  She had been in happy spirits, although a little fluttery inside, when she reached Munich that morning. There was no sign of Miss Surprise, but Betsy hadn’t really expected her at such an early hour. She had gone boldly into the station restaurant.

  “Guten Tag, Fräulein,” the waitress had said, smiling, and Betsy was pleased that she understood, “Good day, Miss.” She did not understand anything further, but she received coffee, strong and delicious, with hot milk and little hard rolls and curls of unsalted butter.

  An interpreter helped her get her trunk through customs; she wrote the address of the Pension Geiger on a card and, seated in an auto cab with her trunk on top and her bags around her, she rattled through the cold bright morning.

  The streets were wide and very clean. They were being swept, she observed, by cheerful-looking old women in aprons. She saw a flower seller unpacking her basket. A group of soldiers in blue and scarlet uniforms passed at a dogtrot.

  “I’m going to love Munich!” Betsy decided.

  Nevertheless, she admitted to a feeling of relief that she was joining Miss Surprise. Independence was all very well, but it would feel cozy to be under somebody’s wing for a while.

  “Just until I begin to remember this darn language!”

  Her heart was pounding when the cab entered Schellingstrasse and drew up before the Pension Geiger.

  This wasn’t too attractive. It rose straight from the sidewalk with a dreary courtyard at the side. Directly opposite, though, stood a wonderful house. Its walls were frescoed in lovely faded colors with kings and shepherdesses and cherubs.

  “It’s like a page from a picture book. Oh, I hope my room is on the front so I can look at it!” thought Betsy.

  A servant girl came hurrying out. She was dark and stockily built with pinned-up skirts, rolled-up sleeves, a key ring at her waist, and gold hoops in her ears. Nodding, bowing, smiling anxiously, and saying things Betsy could not understand, she seized Betsy’s bags and ran into the house.

  She returned in a moment with a tall, hard-featured woman dressed in shiny black who greeted Betsy politely and helped her pay the cabman. But neither she nor the servant spoke English, and Betsy understood none of their guttural talk except for a Fräulein Ray now and then.

  “I’ll certainly be glad to see Miss Surprise,” she thought, and began to repeat the name. “Fräulein Surprise, please…bitte, I mean. Fräulein Surprise.”

  The pension keeper said, “Ja, Fräulein,” and continued with unintelligible jargon. But she led the way inside, and the servant girl, to Betsy’s amazement, hoisted the heavy trunk to her back and followed.

  Betsy didn’t like the hall, which had high bare walls and uncarpeted stairs. It was cold and smelled of cooking. But she liked her room, up on the second floor. It looked cozy with its thick bright carpet and worn velvet curtains over lace ones. There was a green tile stove—such a foreign-looking stove!—and a magnificent desk. She went at once to the window, and to her joy looked out at the picture-book house. Now, if she could just find Miss Surprise.

  “Wo…ist…Fräulein Surprise, bitte?” Betsy asked again, and her hostess picked up a letter lying on the desk. It was addressed in a large angular hand to Betsy, who opened it eagerly.

  Miss Surprise, Betsy discovered, had lived up to her name. She wasn’t in Munich at all! She had changed to a singing teacher in Italy. Maybe Betsy would join her there?

  “But I just came from Italy!” Betsy almost shouted.

  This room, Miss Surprise continued imperturbably, with board, of course, rented for one hundred and ten marks a month (twenty-six dollars and forty cents).

  “And don’t let Frau Geiger charge you any more! She’s an old shrew, as you can see from her face. But the house is respectable. It’s a student pension which is probably what you want since you are a writer looking for material, Julia tells me…” Betsy read that over, bracing herself with Julia’s proud phrase. “The food isn�
��t bad and the place is near everything…galleries, theatres, shops. I’ll be writing you from Florence, Minerva Surprise.”

  Betsy put down the letter uncertainly. Frau Geiger looked expectant. The servant girl was watching anxiously like a dog awaiting the word of command.

  “Oh, for Mr. Brown!” thought Betsy, groping vainly for German. She nodded her head in confirmation and Frau Geiger brought a formidable-looking book for her to sign. She summoned a Fräulein Minnie, a short young woman with bushy hair, who knew a little English and helped Betsy fill out the blanks. They gave her a massive key, and left.

  The servant girl followed, but almost immediately she was back, and now she was smiling a different sort of smile…as though sure of her welcome. Her hands were overflowing with letters which she tumbled onto the green felt ledge of the desk.

  “Oh, thank you! Danke schön!” cried Betsy, and without removing hat or coat, she began to tear them open.

  But reading them was almost more than she could bear. Her father and mother were entertaining their bridge club. Margaret had been asked to a high school dance. The family was going to the Orpheum for a vaudeville show. Julia and Paige would be home for Easter.

  There was a letter from Tacy. Betsy opened it with avid fingers, but she read only half a dozen lines. It was a funny letter—about how Harry had asked some men friends to a venison dinner, and Tacy had never cooked venison, but didn’t like to tell him.

  “It was awful! I certainly wished you were here to charm them with your indefinable Paris air…”

  “See here, I can’t stand this!” said Betsy, and pushed the whole snowy drift of letters back into the desk.

  The servant girl, who was building a fire in the stove, looked up timidly. Betsy forced a smile. She buttoned her coat, picked up gloves and pocket book, and hurried out, trying to act as though she were late for an appointment.

  She walked blindly up one street and down another. She didn’t even pretend to look about. But gradually she became aware of broad, handsome avenues, pleasant squares filled with statuary, stately public buildings, and churches. One of these, with two round-topped towers, could be seen from everywhere.

  Betsy walked on dizzily, and the streets began to seem theatric, as though she were seeing them on a motion picture screen—those old women still sweeping the pavements; policemen with shiny helmets; young men in flat, bright-colored caps; bare-headed girls carrying steins of beer, not one or two but half a dozen, foaming and spilling; and soldiers, soldiers, everywhere, especially officers whose blue and scarlet had an especial elegance and who wore swords at their sides.

  Betsy walked and walked, and at last she realized that the sun stood overhead and she was very hungry.

  “I’d better find a restaurant,” she thought, for she had no idea where she was or how to get back to the pension. “I remember enough German to read a bill of fare.”

  She found one and went in. But to her dismay the menu was in German script. She had forgotten that completely—what she ever knew of it—and was floored for a moment.

  The Mullers were German. She thought back to all the savory dishes she had enjoyed at Tib’s house. How did you say beef stew or roasted chicken or hot potato salad? She could think only of Spinat mit Ei. And she didn’t even like spinach with egg!

  But she said it, and she must have said it properly for spinach with egg was produced. Triumphantly Betsy added, “Kaffee, bitte,” and the waitress brought an empty cup over which she poised two steaming pitchers.

  She asked pleasantly, “Dunkel oder hell?”

  Now what could that mean? Betsy shrugged and laughed, and the waitress, smiling, poured twin streams of coffee and hot milk into the cup.

  When the bill was presented, Betsy spread out a pile of coins and the waitress, still smiling, selected some and left the rest. One of these Betsy pushed toward her, and the girl said, “Danke schön.” She accompanied Betsy to the door with a singsong of farewells in which the other waitresses joined. Betsy had noticed that all departing customers were sent on their way to this chorus. Nevertheless, it sounded friendly.

  And she felt better after she had eaten—even spinach. She thought how funny her experience would read in a letter home. And Miss Surprise’s surprise certainly left her in an adventurous situation. What would the family say?

  But after a while she grew lonely again. Everyone else on Munich’s spacious streets looked so happy and content; they made her feel like an outsider, homeless.

  “But I’ve got a home. It’s my own nice little room. I’ll go back and settle it,” Betsy decided.

  How to find it, though?

  She remembered what Miss Surprise had said about the pension being near the galleries. The Old Pinakothek was the famous one, of course. Stopping a woman who looked reassuringly fat, middle-aged, and plain, Betsy said, “Pinakothek?”

  The kindly answer meant nothing, but the pointing finger was fine. Betsy followed it. She stopped a succession of estimable-looking females. “Pinakothek?” “Pinakothek?” “Pinakothek?”

  She passed bakeries and caught the smell of coffee and the warm fragrance of cakes. Probably Munich had the afternoon coffee habit. Betsy had acquired it, visiting Tib in Milwaukee. She adored it, but coffee would be no fun alone.

  Besides, she realized with a twinge of apprehension, it was getting late. The sun had sunk into some western clouds. Betsy walked and walked, saying “Pinakothek?” “Pinakothek?” “Pinakothek?” and at last, just as dusk fell in earnest, she spied the decorated house.

  She ran into the Pension Geiger gladly. A door on the second-floor corridor was open, and she saw an artist working at an easel. She admitted herself with the massive key, and her room did, indeed, seem a heavenly refuge. A fire was roaring in the tile stove, the velvet curtains had been drawn, and the gas was lighted.

  She took off her wraps, and unpacked and settled. It was good to have her familiar things around her! Soon the little clock was ticking beside her Bible and Prayer Book on the commode beside the funny wooden bed. At the foot stood a marble-topped washstand; and next to that a dressing table bore her jewel case, manicure set, comb and brush and mirror, and pictures of her father and mother. Then came her trunk with the steamer rug across it; and then the green tile stove.

  Opposite, beyond the door, were ranged the wardrobe and a table covered with a spread on which were pictures of Julia and Paige, Bob Barhydt, Tacy and Tib. Mr. Burton’s chocolates (what was left of them) sat there and her books: The Beloved Vagabond, Little Women, Emerson’s Essays, some Dickens, Thackeray, and Dumas, and The Oxford Book of English Verse. Joe Willard had sent her that from Cambridge. There was another book Joe had given her, a limp leather copy of As You Like It.

  Beyond a fat couch came the desk, which stood next to the window opposite the bed.

  “At last,” wrote Betsy, starting her letter home, “I have a big enough desk. It looks as though I were at least a congressman.”

  It had drawers and pigeonholes and shelves. Her writing materials were arranged with businesslike neatness inside. On top were “My Trip Abroad,” and Margaret, and the American flag.

  She told the family casually about Miss Surprise.

  “I’ll do whatever you think best but I’m sure I’m perfectly safe here. Miss S. said the pension was respectable, and I’m snug as a bug in a rug.”

  A piano broke in with a cataract of scales, and Betsy put down her pen to listen.

  As in the early morning one bird is awakened by another into song, so was a violinist somewhere inspired by the pianist to start tuning up. A cornetist began to blow; a tenor began to vocalize; and a clear soprano note rose from the room below.

  After a scale, the soprano broke into an aria, and then started to rehearse an operatic scene. Ignoring the discord of piano, violin, cornet, and tenor, she pleaded and sobbed and went off into gales of artificial laughter.

  Betsy went off into gales of laughter, too.

  “This is a student pension, all ri
ght,” she said, and thought of the artist painting madly in the room across the hall. Tomorrow, she, Betsy, would be writing a story. She had read of Munich’s student life. Now here she was in the midst of it!

  With some excitement she began to dress for supper. It was served at eight, Fräulein Minnie had said. Betsy was very hungry and not only for food; she was even hungrier for the camaraderie into which she expected to be welcomed.

  She wanted a bath after the day’s wanderings, but when she rang for the maid and said, “Bad, bitte,” she wasn’t taken to a bathroom. She received a small jug of hot water. She primped a bit, heating her curling iron over the gas flame, donning the maroon silk dress and spraying perfume with her usual liberality. When a hollow clangor announced supper, she went downstairs with a pounding heart.

  But supper was a bitter disappointment.

  The high-ceilinged dining room was cold. A tile stove stood in one corner but it didn’t seem to hold any fire; it looked clammy. The plaster walls were cracked and the floor was bare, so that the chairs scraped dismally. Faded, discouraged-looking curtains hung at the single window.

  This was flanked by two small empty tables. A long table in the center of the room was half filled with young people who scrutinized Betsy as she entered. The girls were wearing sweaters or woolen dresses, and Betsy was embarrassed by her silk.

  Fräulein Minnie came rushing up to seat her.

  “Does…does anyone here speak English?” Betsy whispered.

  “Nein, Fräulein. At dinner, ja. We have many peoples den from outside. But dese peoples who live in de house do not speak English. Only me.” She was Frau Geiger’s niece, she explained.

  Seating Betsy at the big table, she said something in German and there was an anonymous murmur. The men half rose for hurried bows. After a lull, conversation swelled up in a mixture of tongues: German and French, but spoken too rapidly for Betsy’s ear…Italian, she thought…Russian, maybe. German predominated, of course.