“There’s something I haven’t told you folks,” she began slowly, and stopped.
“It’s about the war!” Mrs. Ray exclaimed.
“I hope you didn’t run out of money,” Mr. Ray said.
“Bettina!” cried Julia, her voice thrilling. “You’re engaged!”
“Yes, I’m engaged to Joe.” Betsy’s smile broke through and everyone fell upon her with tender cries and kisses.
“You two were made for each other! Oh, Paige, isn’t it wonderful?” sang Julia.
“I’m very happy for you, dear,” her mother said. “But Betsy! You’ll be living in Boston!” Mrs. Ray’s voice took on a tragic note.
“You don’t need to worry about that, Mamma,” Betsy answered, radiant. “Joe is planning to come back to Minneapolis. He’s going to get a job here.”
“When will the wedding be?” asked Margaret, starry-eyed.
“Well,” Betsy answered, “I want to talk that over.” She smiled, but the smile looked anxious. “Joe wants to be married very soon.”
“Why, that’s all right! Isn’t it, Bob?” said Mrs. Ray. “We can announce it as soon as you are rested from your trip. Would you like a bridge or a tea—for the announcement party, I mean?” Mrs. Ray looked businesslike as she always did when planning a party.
“There wouldn’t be time for parties,” Betsy replied. “When Joe says ‘soon’ he means ‘soon.’”
“But you…” Her mother paused. “What do you think about that?”
“I wouldn’t mind. I wouldn’t mind at all.”
“What about the job in Boston?” Mr. Ray asked, puffing.
“He’s given that up.” Betsy drew a deep breath. “He’ll be here next week—to be married.”
Mr. Ray put down his cigar. He looked displeased. “But he’ll have to get a job first.”
“Now, Papa!” Julia said soothingly. “You remember how long Joe worked on the Tribune? He won’t have any trouble getting a job there.”
“Probably not,” Mr. Ray agreed, “though there’s a new setup on the Tribune. New editor, I believe. But Joe does have to have a job. Marriage isn’t all love and kisses, Betsy.”
“Oh, we know that!” Betsy cried eagerly. “That’s the reason I haven’t an engagement ring. Joe wanted to go to Tiffany’s and buy me a diamond as soon as I got off the boat. But we realized we needed our money to rent an apartment and buy furniture. So we only bought a wedding ring.”
“A wedding ring!” His voice was shocked.
“Oh, dear!” said Mrs. Ray. “That does sound serious! And you’re barely home, Betsy! You’re hardly unpacked!”
“But Mamma!” Betsy cried pleadingly. “I’m going to be living right here in Minneapolis. I won’t be going away.”
“It won’t be the same,” said Mrs. Ray, and started to cry.
Mr. Ray spoke in the deliberate manner he always used for family pronouncements.
“I like Joe,” he said. “He’s a very fine young man. Of course it’s three years since I saw him; and three years is a pretty long time. But I feel sure this can all be adjusted when he asks to marry you, Betsy.” There was a faint but significant emphasis on “asks.”
Betsy remembered in a panic the formal letter Paige had written, asking for Julia’s hand.
“Oh, he’s going to ask you, Papa!” she said hastily. “Don’t think he doesn’t realize he ought to do that! But he wants to be married so soon! Just the minute he gets here! That’s why I thought I’d better explain. So we could be getting ready for the wedding. You know…some potted palms and things.”
“Potted palms!” Mrs. Ray echoed, and Mr. Ray’s expression grew darker, almost forbidding.
“You mean,” he said, “that Joe will ask me after he gets here and we’ve moved in some potted palms and the minister is standing up in front of the fireplace ready to marry you?”
That was exactly Joe’s idea, and Betsy didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
“Before,” Mr. Ray went on accusingly, “he even has a job? He’s given up the job in Boston, you say?”
“But I thought you’d be pleased about that!” Betsy cried, her voice shaking. “I thought you’d like to have us living here in Minneapolis.”
“Oh, we do! We do!” Mrs. Ray exclaimed, wiping her eyes firmly. “We want that more than anything. Don’t we, Bob?”
“Yes, I’ll be pleased with the Minneapolis job—when he gets one.”
“Papa!” Betsy’s voice was almost angry. She had realized before from which of her parents she inherited her well-known stubbornness. “Can you imagine any newspaper in the whole wide world not giving a job to Joe?”
“Well,” said Mr. Ray, irritably, “you’re taking in a lot of territory. I’ll admit, though, that Joe can probably get a job. And whenever he does I see no objection—after a proper interval—and if he has saved plenty of money—and when he and I have discussed the matter—to your having a beautiful wedding.”
“But we don’t want a beautiful wedding! That is, it will be beautiful to us, but we just want to stand up and be married.”
She was near tears, and Julia came to the rescue again.
“Really, Papa,” she said brightly, “it’s providential! Paige and I have to go back to New York next week, and I couldn’t bear not to be here for Betsy’s wedding.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Ray, now entirely on Betsy’s side, in spite of losing a whole procession of parties. “Yes, we simply have to have Julia, Bob!”
“And Betsy simply has to eat!” said Mr. Ray, extremely nettled. Betsy now was wiping her eyes, and he relented a little. “We’ll talk it all over when Joe comes,” he added kindly and rose.
Everyone knew what would come next. For in every family crisis Mr. Ray always did the same thing.
“I’ll put on the coffee pot,” he said.
He moved majestically out to the kitchen. Kismet followed, mewing, and Margaret followed Kismet, but not without a pitying glance at Betsy. Julia and Paige and her mother gathered around her with comforting whispers. Betsy could not speak.
She felt sure Joe would find a way. He always did. But the trouble was—so did her father. Her father, with his inspired suggestions, which he called “snoggestions,” always made everything right. What happened, Betsy wondered forlornly, when he was on one side and Joe on the other?
“Bob,” Mrs. Ray called, “bring some of those sugar cookies, the ones Anna made especially for Betsy.”
4
Objections Overcome
IN A WEEK, LESS A DAY, Betsy was back in the cavernous railway station waiting for Joe.
At 909 the ritual of preparing for an expected arrival had been performed. The house was polished; there were flowers in the vases; Anna had remembered that Joe liked cocoanut cake and had made a towering beauty.
The dining room table was laid again with the best place mats, china and silver, and Betsy had asked for sausages and scrambled eggs—and muffins, of course. Joe was staying in a hotel, but Mrs. Ray had insisted upon his coming for breakfast. Betsy was to bring him back in double-quick time.
“No billing and cooing along the way!” Mr. Ray had joked. He must get to the store; Margaret had to go to school; and they didn’t want to leave before they had welcomed Joe.
Everyone was talking cheerily about welcoming Joe for it was plain that Betsy was a little subdued. After her father’s decision it had been impossible to set a wedding day, or buy a trousseau, or make any plans. Everyone spoke lovingly of her engagement, but no one mentioned her wedding, and Betsy kept remembering the urgency with which Joe had said he wanted that to be soon. She was troubled about Joe, and troubled too about her father, who went around whistling as he always did when he was worried.
But her spirits lifted, waiting beside the tall gates. Back in the city she loved, with the family she adored, she had still longed for Joe—morning, noon, and night.
I’m in love, all right, she thought, smiling.
She was wearing a green plaid
skirt with a ruffled white waist, her hands thrust deep in the pockets of a short green coat. And although she looked so casual, she was waved, manicured, perfumed, and her green Gibraltar bracelets jingled as the train rushed in and she sped through the opening gates.
In seconds, Joe was swinging toward her, cane on one arm, a bag in either hand. In seconds, cane and bags were on the ground, and Betsy’s new French roll was toppled. She pinned it up, blushing and laughing.
Joe surveyed her. “Wear that skirt on our honeymoon!” he commanded.
They hurried to the line of taxicabs; and one of the drivers, a large, harassed-looking man with gray hair, closed a door upon them.
“909 Hazel Street, skipper!” Joe said. He leaned back and put his arm around Betsy. “Well, I’ve given up my job! I’m a man of leisure. Nothing to do but get married.”
He looked so shiningly happy that Betsy hated to tell her news, but it had to be told.
“Joe,” she said, “I’m so sorry! But Papa doesn’t like the idea of us hurrying things up. You know how proud Papa is, Joe. He just doesn’t like it. Especially since—you haven’t asked his consent to our marriage.”
“By Jiminy!” Joe replied. He looked both chagrined and amused. “I ought to be ashamed of myself. But just you wait, honey! I’ll ask him in style.” Not at all perturbed, he leaned over and kissed her.
“But Joe!” Betsy persisted. “That isn’t all. He doesn’t like it that you haven’t got a job.”
“Haven’t got a job!” echoed Joe. “Why I haven’t had time to get one. I just got here.”
“I know,” Betsy gulped. “And he’s awfully pleased, and so is Mamma, that you gave up the job in Boston. But what Papa says is—you ought to have a job before we talk about getting married. That’s only good sense, he says. After you get a job, then he and Mamma will announce the engagement, and we can pick out our apartment and our furniture and have a lot of parties—”
Joe leaned forward abruptly. “Make it the Tribune, skipper,” he said.
Betsy caught his hand and squeezed it joyfully. She had known Joe would straighten everything out!
“That’s a wonderful idea!” she cried. “You can get a job there just by asking. There’s a new editor, though.”
“There is?” Joe turned abruptly.
“That’s what Papa says.”
Joe stared at Betsy but he did not seem to see her.
“Just watch Willard’s smoke!” he muttered to himself.
The driver had turned his car, and they rode back down a morning-fresh Hennepin Avenue to Fourth Street where the Tribune and the rival Journal offices stood. Joe did not speak; he was frowning; but the slant of his lower lip showed exhilaration in the nut he had to crack.
“Wait here, honey!” he said when the cab stopped. Before she could answer he was through the door of the Tribune building and halfway up the stairs.
The cab fare would be high, Betsy thought, but she wasn’t worried. It was worth the money to go home with the announcement that Joe had a job. What concerned her was keeping breakfast waiting.
Oh, they’ll think the train was late! she consoled herself, but she watched the door of the building eagerly, waiting for Joe to come bounding out with a triumphant smile.
When he emerged, however, he wasn’t smiling. He came to the cab and spoke crisply—to the driver, rather than to her.
“Wait a little longer. I’m going into the Journal,” he said. Cane on arm, he swung boldly up the street.
Betsy looked after him feeling half-scared but she was interested, too, in his single-minded drive. Was this the way he went about a newspaper assignment? Was this what he was like out in that world she did not know?
Well, whatever had happened at the Tribune—the new editor, of course!—he would soon have a job on the Journal. She still refused to think of the cab fare but a vision of her waiting family would not be banished.
She spoke with dignity to the large slumping back of the driver. “I’m going to telephone my mother.”
He turned and glanced down at Joe’s bags. “All right, miss,” he answered gruffly and Betsy found a drug store telephone.
“What is it, darling? Was the train late?” her mother asked.
“Not that. We’ll explain when we get there.”
“Well, hurry! Anna has the muffins ready to pop in the oven, and Papa’s getting hungry.”
“We won’t be long now.”
Betsy reached the cab just as Joe did.
“I was ’phoning the family to tell them we’d be late,” she began, but again she could see he wasn’t listening.
“The Courier!” he said to the driver.
To her, during the short ride he said nothing at all. He did not look at her nor even seem to know that she was there, but Betsy understood. He had ruled out every thing, even her, in the strength of his determination.
He would soon run out of newspapers!
Waiting in front of the Courier building, she did give the cab fare a thought. But she tossed it away. With Joe fighting like this, she had better things to think of—and to do.
“I’m going to telephone my mother again,” she told the driver’s back.
“Betsy!” Mrs. Ray wailed. “What’s the matter?”
“I haven’t time to explain. I just want to ask you please to go ahead with breakfast. Joe and I will put on the coffee pot whenever we get home.”
“But Betsy! The table looks so lovely. I can’t bear…”
“We can’t help it,” Betsy said. “Please, Mamma! Please!” and she put down the receiver.
This time she got back to the cab ahead of Joe, and he was gone so long that she began to grow hopeful, but when he came out she knew at once that the news was not good.
He strode forward with his usual vigor but it was like the vigor of a sleepwalker. He was not discouraged because he would not be discouraged. And if he was afraid, the fear was held deep down and not allowed to come up. He had closed his mind against any possibility of failure. He was going to get a job!
He jumped into the cab and said to the driver, “The Marsh Arcade.”
The Marsh Arcade! Betsy thought to herself. Why was he going to that group of fashionable little shops? There were a few offices on the upper floors, she remembered, but could one of them hold a job for Joe?
It must! And she started praying. She prayed all the way up Nicollet Avenue to Tenth Street. There they reached the Arcade and Joe disappeared inside the swinging doors.
The driver turned around. “There’s a foot doctor in that building,” he said sourly. “But if your young man always uses taxicabs this way, he can’t be looking for a foot doctor.”
“Of course he isn’t!” Betsy answered warmly. “He’s looking for a job.”
“A job, eh? Isn’t this sort of an expensive way to do it?”
“We want to get married,” she confided.
“Well, wait till he lands that job!” the driver advised.
Just like her father! Betsy thought.
“He’ll get one,” she said.
The seamy face softened a trifle. “I’ll say this for him, miss. He isn’t letting any grass grow under his feet.”
The wait this time was the longest of all. It was very long. But at last Joe pushed through the swinging doors again, and his smile seemed to shed a glow on everything about him—the yellow hair, the dancing eyes, the now triumphant slant of his lower lip.
“Wait a sec!” he called and darted into a florist’s shop on the main floor of the Arcade. He came out with an enormous paper-wrapped spray.
“For your mother,” he said, climbing into the cab. “909 Hazel Street, skipper. You may now,” he added to Betsy, “gather kith and kin for the wedding. I have a job.”
The taxi driver heaved around. “That’s getting a hit in the clutch, kid!”
“It’s the Ty Cobb in me.” Joe winked, and he toppled Betsy’s French roll again.
“But what is the job?” she demanded, pink-cheeked,
pinning up her hair. “There isn’t any newspaper published in the Marsh Arcade.”
“There’s a publicity office,” answered Joe. “A fine one.”
“Begin at the beginning!” Betsy ordered.
“In the first place,” Joe complied, “eight in the morning is no time to be looking for a job. It’s almost the busiest spot in the day. I knew that, but I was desperate. My practically-father-in-law saying I was out of a job!
“At the Trib and Journal I couldn’t even get to the city desk. I just filled out forms in the reception room. The Deep Valley Sun, the Wells Courier News, the Minneapolis Tribune, and the Boston Transcript.”
“And Harvard!” bounced Betsy. “You told them about Harvard, didn’t you?”
“You bet I did! I almost told them about you. And when my application blank reached Hawthorne, the city editor of the Courier, he must have sort of liked the looks of it, because he sent me to an office his wife runs. The Hawthorne Publicity Bureau. It’s starting a big campaign to raise money for the Belgians.”
“Joe, how wonderful!”
“And, Betsy, this Mrs. Hawthorne is a charmer!”
“A charmer?” asked Betsy doubtfully.
“An absolute charmer!” Joe replied. “She’s tall and dark—a vibrant sort of woman.”
“About how old?” Betsy sounded cautious.
“Gosh, I don’t know! Ageless! And Betsy, we got to talking, and the first thing I knew, I’d told her all about you and—I hope you won’t mind—I asked her to our wedding.”
“Joe!”
“Yep, and she accepted. For herself and her husband and their little girl. I told her especially to bring the little girl.”
“But you know, Joe, even with the job…”
“I know.” Joe turned serious. “I think, Betsy, that your father will see things our way. But if you’d like to wait a while, have all those parties and things—why, honey, I’m yours on any terms.” He smiled down at her. “Personally, I’ve waited long enough.”
“So have I,” said Betsy.
“And just on the chance,” Joe went on, “I told Mrs. Hawthorne that I’d rather not start work until Monday. That gives us three days for a honeymoon, if we’re married tomorrow….”