Understood Betsy - Dorothy Canfield Fisher (autobiographies to read TXT) 📗

single word during

the long embrace which followed. Then Aunt Abigail straightened up

hastily, took her candle very quickly and softly, and heavily padded out

of the room.

 

Betsy turned over and flung one arm over Molly—no Molly, either, after

tomorrow!

 

She gulped hard and stared up at the ceiling, dimly white in the

starlight. A gleam of light shone under the door. It widened, and Uncle

Henry stood there, a candle in his hand, peering into the room. “You

awake, Betsy?” he said cautiously.

 

“Yes. I’m awake, Uncle Henry.”

 

The old man shuffled into the room. “I just got to thinking,” he said,

hesitating, “that maybe you’d like to take my watch with you. It’s kind

of handy to have a watch on the train. And I’d like real well for you to

have it.”

 

He laid it down on the stand, his own cherished gold watch, that had

been given him when he was twenty-one.

 

Betsy reached out and took his hard, gnarled old fist in a tight grip.

“Oh, Uncle Henry!” she began, and could not go on.

 

“We’ll miss you, Betsy,” he said in an uncertain voice. “It’s

been … it’s been real nice to have you here …”

 

And then he too snatched up his candle very quickly and almost ran out

of the room.

 

Betsy turned over on her back. “No crying, now!” she told herself

fiercely. “No crying, now!” She clenched her hands together tightly and

set her teeth.

 

Something moved in the room. Somebody leaned over her. It was Cousin

Ann, who didn’t make a sound, not one, but who took Betsy in her strong

arms and held her close and closer, till Betsy could feel the quick

pulse of the other’s heart beating all through her own body. Then she

was gone—as silently as she came.

 

But somehow that great embrace had taken away all the burning tightness

from Betsy’s eyes and heart. She was very, very tired, and soon after

this she fell sound asleep, snuggled up close to Molly.

 

In the morning, nobody spoke of last night at all. Breakfast was

prepared and eaten, and the team hitched up directly afterward. Betsy

and Uncle Henry were to drive to the station together to meet Aunt

Frances’s train. Betsy put on her new wine-colored cashmere that Cousin

Ann had made her, with the soft white collar of delicate old embroidery

that Aunt Abigail had given her out of one of the trunks in the attic.

 

She and Uncle Henry said very little as they drove to the village, and

even less as they stood waiting together on the platform. Betsy slipped

her hand into his and he held it tight as the train whistled in the

distance and came slowly and laboriously puffing up to the station.

 

Just one person got off at the little station, and that was Aunt

Frances, looking ever so dressed up and citified, with a fluffy ostrich-feather boa and kid gloves and a white veil over her face and a big blue

one floating from her gay-flowered velvet hat. How pretty she was! And

how young—under the veil which hid so kindly all the little lines in

her sweet, thin face. And how excited and fluttery! Betsy had forgotten

how fluttery Aunt Frances was! She clasped Betsy to her, and then

started back crying—she must see to her suitcase—and then she clasped

Betsy to her again and shook hands with Uncle Henry, whose grim old face

looked about as cordial and welcoming as the sourest kind of sour

pickle, and she fluttered back and said she must have left her umbrella

on the train. “Oh, Conductor! Conductor! My umbrella—right in my seat—

a blue one with a crooked-over—oh, here it is in my hand! What am I

thinking of!”

 

The conductor evidently thought he’d better get the train away as soon

as possible, for he now shouted, “All aboard!” to nobody at all, and

sprang back on the steps. The train went off, groaning over the steep

grade, and screaming out its usual echoing warning about the next road

crossing.

 

Uncle Henry took Aunt Frances’s suitcase and plodded back to the surrey.

He got into the front seat and Aunt Frances and Betsy in the back; and

they started off.

 

And now I want you to listen to every single word that was said on the

back seat, for it was a very, very important conversation, when Betsy’s

fate hung on the curl of an eyelash and the flicker of a voice, as fates

often do.

 

Aunt Frances hugged Betsy again and again and exclaimed about her having

grown so big and tall and fat—she didn’t say brown too, although you

could see that she was thinking that, as she looked through her veil at

Betsy’s tanned face and down at the contrast between her own pretty,

white fingers and Betsy’s leather-colored, muscular little hands. She

exclaimed and exclaimed and kept on exclaiming! Betsy wondered if she

really always had been as fluttery as this. And then, all of a sudden it

came out, the great news, the reason for the extra flutteriness.

 

Aunt Frances was going to be married!

 

Yes! Think of it! Betsy fell back open-mouthed with astonishment.

 

“Did Betsy think her Aunt Frances a silly old thing?”

 

“Oh, Aunt Frances, NO!” cried Betsy fervently. “You look just as YOUNG,

and pretty! Lots younger than I remembered you!”

 

Aunt Frances flushed with pleasure and went on, “You’ll love your old

Aunt Frances just as much, won’t you, when she’s Mrs. Plimpton!”

 

Betsy put her arms around her and gave her a great hug. “I’ll always

love you, Aunt Frances!” she said.

 

“You’ll love Mr. Plimpton, too. He’s so big and strong, and he just

loves to take care of people. He says that’s why he’s marrying me. Don’t

you wonder where we are going to live?” she asked, answering her own

question quickly. “We’re not going to live anywhere. Isn’t that a joke?

Mr. Plimpton’s business keeps him always moving around from one place to

another, never more than a month anywhere.”

 

“What’ll Aunt Harriet do?” asked Betsy wonderingly.

 

“Why, she’s ever and ever so much better,” said Aunt Frances happily.

“And her own sister, my Aunt Rachel, has come back from China, where

she’s been a missionary for ever so long, and the two old ladies are

going to keep house together out in California, in the dearest little

bungalow, all roses and honeysuckle. But YOU’RE going to be with me.

Won’t it be jolly fun, darling, to go traveling all about everywhere,

and see new places all the time!”

 

Now those are the words Aunt Frances said, but something in her voice

and her face suggested a faint possibility to Betsy that maybe Aunt

Frances didn’t really think it would be such awfully jolly fun as her

words said. Her heart gave a big jump up, and she had to hold tight to

the arm of the surrey before she could ask, in a quiet voice, “But, Aunt

Frances, won’t I be awfully in your way, traveling around so?”

 

Now, Aunt Frances had ears of her own, and though that was what Betsy’s

words said, what Aunt Frances heard was a suggestion that possibly Betsy

wasn’t as crazy to leave Putney Farm as she had supposed of course she

would be.

 

They both stopped talking for a moment and peered at each other through

the thicket of words that held them apart. I told you this was a very

momentous conversation. One sure thing is that the people on the back

seat saw the inside of the surrey as they traveled along, and nothing

else. Red sumac and bronzed beech-trees waved their flags at them in

vain. They kept their eyes fixed on each other intently, each in an

agony of fear lest she hurt the other’s feelings.

 

After a pause Aunt Frances came to herself with a start, and said,

affectionately putting her arm around Betsy, “Why, you darling, what

does Aunt Frances care about trouble if her own dear baby-girl is

happy?”

 

And Betsy said, resolutely, “Oh, you know, Aunt Frances, I’d LOVE to be

with you!” She ventured one more step through the thicket. “But

honestly, Aunt Frances, WON’T it be a bother … ?”

 

Aunt Frances ventured another step to meet her, “But dear little girls

must be SOMEWHERE …”

 

And Betsy almost forgot her caution and burst out, “But I could stay

here! I know they would keep me!”

 

Even Aunt Frances’s two veils could not hide the gleam of relief and

hope that came into her pretty, thin, sweet face. She summoned all her

courage and stepped out into the clearing in the middle of the thicket,

asking right out, boldly, “Why, do you like it here, Betsy? Would you

like to stay?”

 

And Betsy—she never could remember afterward if she had been careful

enough not to shout too loudly and joyfully—Betsy cried out, “Oh, I

LOVE it here!” There they stood, face to face, looking at each other

with honest and very happy eyes. Aunt Prances threw her arm around Betsy

and asked again, “Are you SURE, dear?” and didn’t try to hide her

relief. And neither did Betsy.

 

“I could visit you once in a while, when you are somewhere near here,”

suggested Betsy, beaming.

 

“Oh, YES, I must have SOME of the time with my darling!” said Aunt

Frances. And this time there was nothing in their hearts that

contradicted their lips.

 

They clung to each other in speechless satisfaction as Uncle Henry

guided the surrey up to the marble stepping-stone. Betsy jumped out

first, and while Uncle Henry was helping Aunt Frances out, she was

dashing up the walk like a crazy thing. She flung open the front door

and catapulted into Aunt Abigail just coming out. It was like flinging

herself into a feather-bed … .

 

“Oh! Oh!” she gasped out. “Aunt Frances is going to be married. And

travel around all the time! And she doesn’t REALLY want me at all! Can’t

I stay here? Can’t I stay here?”

 

Cousin Ann was right behind Aunt Abigail, and she heard this. She looked

over their shoulders toward Aunt Frances, who was approaching from

behind, and said, in her usual calm and collected voice: “How do you do,

Frances? Glad to see you, Frances. How well you’re looking! I hear you

are in for congratulations. Who’s the happy man?”

 

Betsy was overcome with admiration for her coolness in being able to

talk so in such an exciting moment. She knew Aunt Abigail couldn’t have

done it, for she had sat down in a rocking-chair, and was holding Betsy

on her lap. The little girl could see her wrinkled old hand trembling on

the arm of the chair.

 

“I hope that means,” continued Cousin Ann, going as usual straight to

the point, “that we can keep Betsy here with us.”

 

“Oh, would you like to?” asked Aunt Frances, fluttering, as though the

idea had never occurred to her before that minute. “Would Elizabeth Ann

really LIKE to stay?”

 

“Oh, I’d LIKE to, all right!” said Betsy, looking confidently up into

Aunt Abigail’s face.

 

Aunt Abigail spoke now. She cleared her throat twice before she could

bring out a word. Then she said, “Why, yes, we’d kind of like to keep

her. We’ve sort of got used to having her around.”

 

That’s what she SAID, but, as you have noticed before on this exciting

day, what people said didn’t matter as much as what they looked; and as

her old lips pronounced these words so quietly the corners of Aunt

Abigail’s mouth were twitching, and she