Not ten minutes later, catastrophic news floated across the Assembly Room.
“Joe is taking Irma to the New Year’s Eve dance.”
“Oh, well!” Tacy was saying. “He couldn’t take Betsy. Tony asked her first.”
“How under the sun did Irma happen not to have been asked?”
“She was going with Dave. And he has…of all things…the measles.”
Joe was taking Irma. He was mad at her and he was taking Irma. Betsy felt a lump like a clump of burrs in her throat, but she tried to laugh and enter into the fun echoing around the room.
When she was leaving the building, in a group of boys and girls, Joe came up and called her aside. He looked very poised and stiff. He was smiling, and his eyes were bright.
“I want to apologize, Betsy,” he said. “Gosh, I made a fool of myself! You have fun New Year’s Eve with Tony, and from now on all bets are off.”
“All bets are off!” What did he mean by that? Betsy still felt cold inside.
“I’ll play the field,” said Joe. “I’ll really play the field. By the way,” he added, reaching into his pocket, “here’s something for that Christmas stocking.”
Mustering a smile, holding back tears, Betsy took the package and offered her own.
“Merry Christmas,” she said. The words were a mockery with Joe looking like that.
Not until she got home and began to unwrap the package did Betsy realize that it was just the same size as the one she had given Joe. Unwrapping it, the lump in her throat got bigger as comprehension grew. It was the same volume, a red, limp-leather, Avon edition of As You Like It. Inside he had written “We’ll fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world.”
But Betsy knew he had written that before he knew that she was going to the dance with Tony. She put her face into her hands and began to cry.
13
Christmas Without Julia
BETSY DIDN’T ALLOW HERSELF to cry very long.
Downstairs, Margaret was laboriously but fervently pounding out on the piano:
“It came…upon the midnight clear….”
Mrs. Ray was laughing. Mr. Ray was demanding tissue paper. The smell of oyster stew was rising from the kitchen.
Betsy got up and went to the window. The gas in her room was not yet lighted, so she could see clearly into the out-of-doors. Snowflakes were whirling against the arc light, and the drifts which covered the lawn had already received a fresh, soft, unblemished blanketing.
It was Christmas Eve, and she was seventeen. Julia was across the ocean, and so there devolved on her the subtle responsibilities of oldest daughter. All the careful planning in the world, the nicest presents, wreaths in the windows, and candy canes in the doorways would not make Christmas Eve a happy time in any house unless the people in that house were happy. If Betsy’s eyes were red, no forced gaiety would make the hearts of the others light.
“I couldn’t be so mean,” Betsy said fiercely. “Please, God, help me to take Julia’s place, tonight.”
She went into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face, and the music downstairs ended abruptly. Margaret called, “Betsy! Betsy! Come help with the joke presents!” The Rays always wrapped up onions and lumps of coal and other choice articles to put in the stockings along with oranges and candies and small gifts.
“Coming!” Betsy called.
When her cheeks were pink from cold water, she powdered carefully, combed her hair, and put a sprig of holly behind her pompadour. Then she ran downstairs into the Christmas Eve bustle.
“What do you suppose Papa’s getting for Mamma that is such a secret?” Margaret asked, tying a knot firmly over a turnip that was going to Mrs. Ray, “From an Old Beau.”
“I can’t imagine, except that it’s something for the house and sort of for all of us. I wonder what I’m going to get. Nothing big, I’m sure, with Julia having such an expensive year.”
Margaret choked, then coughed concealingly.
“That’s right,” she said with elaborate carelessness. “You couldn’t possibly be getting anything big.”
“Shall we open Julia’s box tonight or in the morning?” Mr. Ray called out.
“I say tonight,” said Mrs. Ray. “There’s always so much in the morning.”
“I say tonight, too,” said Betsy. “It will make it seem more as though Julia were here.”
“I don’t believe in opening anything on Christmas Eve,” said Margaret. “But that’s a good reason, Betsy. I’ll give in.”
Anna banged on the gong to summon them to oyster stew. She was wearing a white apron and her hair was curled. The dining room table was set with the company dishes, but the room was littered with tissues and ribbons, and packages, large and small.
After supper was cleared away, Mr. Ray brought in the tree. Cold and a delicious forest smell came with it. It was set up in the dining room, and Betsy and Margaret brought the cardboard boxes of decorations down from the garret.
“Trimming the tree is a messy job,” Anna always said. But Betsy, unwrapping the baubles, red, green, blue, and gold, many of which she had bought with Tacy and Tib on their Christmas shopping trips, insisted that it was almost the nicest part of Christmas.
“No,” said Margaret. “Coming downstairs Christmas morning in the dark is the nicest.” But she, too, loved fastening stars and angels on the fresh, good-smelling branches.
The tree was a beauty.
“We say every year that our Christmas tree is the nicest we ever had, but this one really is,” said Betsy, gazing at the tall balsam, which carried its glittering load with proud ease.
When the candles were lighted, she went to the piano. She couldn’t play the carols as well as Julia, but she could play them. She was thankful for her piano lessons as the family gathered around her singing, “O, Little Town of Bethlehem,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” and the tender “Silent Night.”
“Now for the ritual,” said Betsy, jumping up. “Silent Night” had made everyone think too hard of Julia.
Margaret recited ’Twas the Night Before Christmas, as usual. But tonight Mrs. Ray read what Betsy usually read, the story of the Cratchits’ Christmas dinner, and Betsy read what Julia usually read, the story of the first Christmas, from the book of Luke. She tried to read it as Julia did, gravely and reverently.
“‘And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night….’”
Outside, the snow was coming down and down and down. She wondered whether it was snowing in Berlin.
After the reading, they opened Julia’s box and it did, indeed, seem to bring her nearer. There were gifts for everyone, even Abie and Washington, festively wrapped. Betsy received some popular music by the composer of The Merry Widow. It was “Kind, Du Kannst Tanzen.” She was proud to be able to translate it—“Child, You Can Dance.” The presents all looked foreign—gold-embroidered collars, prints of famous pictures, strange little painted boxes.
Before anyone had a chance to start missing Julia again, Betsy proposed filling the stockings. This rite, performed in a dim light, was a sure source of excitement.
“I can’t put Jule’s present in her stocking until tomorrow, can I, Anna?” Mr. Ray asked.
“In her…” Anna began to sway with laughter. “Stars in the sky, Mr. Ray! Sure, we’re going to put it in her stocking, if she has a good big one. Ha! Ha! Ha!”
After the stockings were filled, they had cider and Christmas cookies.
Betsy had tried so hard to be like Julia that she had almost forgotten the ache in her heart. Margaret came in to sleep with her and they had fun talking, as they undressed, about Christmases up on Hill Street, across the street from Tacy’s, Christmases which now seemed almost like a dream to Margaret.
“I remember that I used to hear the reindeer on that roof,” she said.
“So did I,” answered Betsy. “And I could hear Santa Claus sliding down the chimney. We didn’t have a fireplac
e, you remember, and the stovepipe leading from the coal stove downstairs ran through our bedroom. It was only about as big as my two hands. But I could imagine Santa Claus sort of thinning out as he slid down and getting round and fat again as soon as he landed on the back parlor floor.”
Margaret laughed as she snuggled into Betsy’s bed. “I wonder what Julia’s doing.”
“She’ll have a wonderful Christmas with the Von Hetternichs,” said Betsy. “It will be like my Christmas in Milwaukee.” And she told Margaret stories about that fabulous holiday until Margaret grew sleepy.
After Margaret had fallen asleep, Betsy’s thoughts went back to Joe. The Christmas Eve proceedings had cheered her up so much that she began to believe things couldn’t be so bad as she had feared. Perhaps, when he opened her gift, he would be affected just as she had been by the fact that they had both bought As You Like It. Perhaps he would telephone tomorrow. Perhaps he would even come for turkey sandwiches.
She woke to the sound of her father shaking down the furnace. She had wakened before Margaret, which was a miracle on Christmas morning. Last night’s optimism was still with her, and she jumped up and ran to the window.
“Merry Christmas,” she whispered into the ghostly world and turned to pounce on Margaret, shouting “Merry Christmas!”
Heat began to come up through the register. The smell of coffee rose. Betsy and Margaret were dressing hurriedly when Mrs. Ray came in.
“Papa says we have to stay here till he calls us.”
“Why? What’s it all about?”
“I can’t imagine,” said Mrs. Ray. “I usually catch on, but I have no idea what this secret is. Bob, are you ready?” she called.
“You hold your horses,” Mr. Ray replied.
“We’re coming!” she threatened.
“You stay there till you’re invited down.”
There was a hammering. There was a wrenching sound. There was a thud, and another, and Anna’s giggle, and a long pause in which Mrs. Ray, Betsy, and Margaret clutched hands. Then Mr. Ray shouted, “Now!”
As they took the first step down the stairs, chimes sounded, wonderfully sweet. Betsy recognized the song. It was the one played every hour by the chimes of Big Ben in London, the one of which Julia had written.
“Oh, Lord our God,
Be thou our guide,
That by thy help,
No foot may slide.”
Just as she and her mother and Margaret reached the landing, they heard a deep-toned resonant striking.
“One,” they counted, “two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.”
“Bob Ray!” cried Mrs. Ray, running down the stairs. “It’s a chime clock!”
Mr. Ray was laughing so that his stomach shook.
“Where is it?” asked Betsy, looking around.
“And why did it strike twelve?” asked Margaret. “It isn’t twelve o’clock.”
“He set it at twelve, to make it exciting,” cried Anna. “Stars in the sky! The trouble we took getting that thing unpacked.”
The tall grandfather clock stood against a wall of the music room, looking as benevolent and yet as dignified as Mr. Ray himself. The girls danced about it while Mrs. Ray hugged her husband.
“I’ve wanted a chime clock for ages. Ever since Julia was in London. How did you know?” she cried.
After this magnificent gift, which was really for everyone, of course, Betsy didn’t expect very much for herself. She didn’t mind. What made Christmas morning so glorious wasn’t actually the presents, but the mystery, the thrusting of one’s hand into a crammed stocking, the unwrapping of mysterious-looking parcels under the tree.
This began now beside a crackling fire, while Mr. Ray urged everyone to help themselves to coffee, sausages, and toast set out on the dining room table.
It was exciting not only to unwrap your own gifts but to watch others unwrap what you had planned for them. Margaret’s eyes sparkled while Betsy exclaimed over the homemade blotter. Betsy waited eagerly as her father examined the “Don’t Worry” motto. Anna had pressed it and Betsy had pasted it on cardboard and framed it. The glass hid the deficiencies in her embroidery.
“That’s mighty nice, Betsy. I’m glad you’re learning to sew. It expresses my sentiments exactly, too.”
Margaret had a doll, of course. A beautiful, jointed, bisque doll, with blond curls, a pink dress, openwork stockings, and patent leather slippers.
“How awful it will be, Bob, the first Christmas Margaret doesn’t want a doll!”
“I’ll always want a doll,” Margaret promised, looking sober.
“Either she will or our grandchildren will,” said Mr. Ray. “We’ll be having grandchildren around in a few years, don’t forget.”
There was one big box left to be opened. Mr. Ray brought it to Betsy.
“It’s almost like the box I got my furs in last year, but I can’t be getting furs again. It’s probably a joke,” she thought.
Mrs. Ray was beaming. Anna leaned forward with delighted eyes. Margaret hugged her father’s arm to restrain excited giggles.
Betsy untied the ribbons, pulled off the tissues, lifted the box cover.
“An opera cape!” she squealed. Jumping up, she shook it out. It was pale blue broadcloth lined with white satin, trimmed with silk braid and gold and blue buttons.
“Papa! Mamma! It’s a perfect dream!”
“It’s time you had an opera cape, now you’re a senior,” Mr. Ray said.
“It just matches that blue dress Julia sent you,” Margaret cried.
“You’ll look tony in it, lovey,” Anna exclaimed.
Mrs. Ray was talking excitedly. “You would have to have one in the spring anyway. So Papa and I thought you might as well have it now. The New Year’s Eve dance is going to be so elegant this year, down at the Melborn Hotel.”
Betsy’s heart sank. What fun would an opera cape be when Joe was going with Irma? But maybe, she thought hopefully, they would have made up by then? Probably he would telephone today. Certainly he would. She put the opera cape on over her morning dress and paraded up and down.
The day was quite like other Christmas days. Julia was so much on their lips that she seemed to be actually there.
Tony went to church with Betsy. Soft mountains of snow covered the lawns and shrubs. Soft clumps of it lay on the evergreens; soft strips showed white along black boughs. Mr. Ray had already shoveled his walk, but many householders had slept later, so Betsy and Tony had to take to the road.
In the small crowded church, smelling of evergreens and radiant with candles, Betsy sang with all her heart:
“O come, all ye faithful,
joyful and triumphant….”
She actually felt joyful and triumphant.
Dinner followed with four kinds of dessert—caramel ice cream, mince pie, fruit cake, and plum pudding. The afternoon was filled with grown-up naps and company, Christmas books and games, and the chiming of the clock.
It made one conscious of the passing of time, that clock.
“Oh, Lord our God,” and then in no time at all, “Oh, Lord our God, Be thou our guide”; and in what couldn’t possibly have been fifteen minutes more, “Oh, Lord our God, Be thou our guide, That by thy help…” After that there was nothing to do but wait for the completed verse.
At first Betsy loved it, but that was because she was still happy. She was still sure Joe would telephone. As the afternoon wore away, twilight dulling the snow until it was gray, her hopes dwindled.
The telephone rang, and it was Carney saying that she was involved with family doings and would not be up for supper. It rang again, and it was Anna’s Charlie. It rang again, and it was Cab.
Inexorably the clock pulled the afternoon into evening. The Christmas tree was lighted. Mr. Ray was out in the kitchen making sandwiches. Winona was at the piano and Tony was urging Betsy to come and sing.
Joe hadn’t come. He wasn’t coming. He was still mad at her, Betsy thought, wit
h that swelling back in her throat.
“Oh, Lord our God,
Be thou our guide,
That by thy help,
No foot may slide.”
sang the chime clock and struck eight…and nine…and ten.
14
The New Year’s Eve Dance
THE NEW CHIME CLOCK tolled off the days of the holiday week. As usual in Deep Valley, there was a parade of parties. On the day after Christmas came the church Christmas tree. That was followed by the Crowd Christmas tree. Hazel acted as Santa Claus and made a very funny one. The presents caused laughter, too, for everyone received at least one boudoir cap. The coquettish little mobcaps, trimmed with lace, flowers, or bows of ribbon, were the rage.
“Ye Gods! When do I wear the thing?” asked Tacy, adjusting the delicate confection she had received from Tib.
“For breakfast, silly!”
“But I have to have my hair combed for breakfast,” grumbled Alice.
“So do I,” said Carney. “Neat as a pin.”
“These will be fine for covering up my Magic Wavers,” said Betsy, putting the two caps she had received on her head together.
She was acting nonsensical. She acted nonsensical all that week, wilder and more absurd as party followed party. Joe didn’t come to any of them; he stayed at Butternut Center. But the chime clock kept reminding Betsy that the New Year’s Eve dance was approaching.
There were several parties for Carney—evening parties with the boys, and afternoon parties where she told the girls all about Vassar. To one of these Betsy brought her Christmas letter from Herbert. She called Carney aside and gleefully pointed out a paragraph.
“What kind of a dame has Carney turned out to be? Larry is still mooning about her.”
Carney looked serious.
“Well, how have I turned out?” she asked, fixing her forthright gaze on Betsy.
Betsy looked at her, pink-cheeked, bright-eyed, in a snowy shirtwaist, a well pressed skirt, and polished shoes. She no longer wore the hair ribbon she had clung to until her graduation from high school. Like the other girls, she now wore a band around her hair with a big bow on the side. But she still had her fresh, woodsy, honest look.