Betsy and the Great World

Chapter 1

Traveling Alone

Betsy was chanting it under her breath to give herself courage as, laden with camera, handbag, umbrella, and Complete Pocket Guide to Europe, she started up the gangplank to the deck of the S.S. Columbic.

Behind her was a barnlike structure, crowded with carriages, automobiles, baggage carts, and milling distracted passengers. Before her loomed the great bulk of the liner. Thirteen thousand tons of it, according to the advertisements over which she had pored-far, far back in Minnesota. It had layers of decks, a smokestack in the center, and tall masts flying flags. She could smell the waters of Boston Harbor — cold, salty, fishy-into which she would presently be sailing.

" 'Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne . . .'" Her teeth were almost chattering. Not from cold, for she wore furs over her long tight coat and carried a muff. Fur trimmed, too, was her hat. She shivered because she was shaky inside, fearful and bewildered.

" 'He travels the fastest who travels alone . . .'" She wasn't alone, exactly. A porter had seized her suitcases, and he strode beside her shoulder. But he was a stranger, like the throngs of people all around her. And they all seemed to be in groups-sociable, laughing, chattering groups.

Of course, Betsy, too, would be with someone else shortly. Her father and mother had seen to that. A bachelor professor and his unmarried sister, friends of Betsy's father's brother, had agreed to keep an eye on her during the voyage. But at her first meeting withthem, this morning at the Parker House, she had managed to convey the impression that their chaperonage was extremely nominal. And when they had suggested that she join them for some travel later, she had been purposefully vague. It wasn't her idea to go through Europe with the Wilsons, kind as they were, and homesick as she already was.

"Tacy ought to be here," she thought forlornly.

She and Tacy had planned trips through all the long years of their friendship. They had planned to go around the world together, to see the Taj Mahal by moonlight, to go to the top of the Himalayas and up the Amazon, and above all to live in Paris ... with ladies' maids.

Celeste and Hortense, they had christened their maids ... imaginary ones, of course.

"Thank goodness I have Celeste, at least," Betsy muttered. For Tacy had faithlessly married. Julia was married too. Betsy had been her older sister's maid of honor in December.

It was January now, 1914.

"Julia settling down!" Betsy scoffed.

Julia wasn't, of course, settling down. A singer, she had married a flutist, and they planned to pursue their careers together. But Betsy was in no mood to be fair. The confusion on deck was more subtly terrifying even than the tumult below. The well-dressed men, the women with corsage bouquets blooming on their shoulders, seemed so assured, so gaily sufficient to themselves and one another, so completely indifferent to the great adventure of one Betsy Ray, aged twenty-one, from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The porter turned her over to a uniformed steward. She was taken below decks, along labyrinthine corridors, carpeted, smelling of the sea, to her stateroom, Number 52.

Number 52! They had selected it back in Minneapolis. She remembered the chart on the travel agent's desk and her family rejoicing because this stateroom had a porthole giving on the ocean.

There it was, the porthole! And the room was a small white affair with a washstand and two bunks, one above the other. Miss Wilson would have the lower one. Betsy's steamer trunk had already been placed in a corner. The steward put her bags on it, and she tipped him, trying to act casual.

Back on deck, she secured a steamer chair — Julia had told her that was the first thing to do. But what about her ticket? Shouldn't she give that to someone? She found the office of the purser.

He was very busy, besieged from all sides, but when she said with anxious dignity, "I'm Miss Elizabeth Ray," he turned quickly.

"And it's Miss Betsy Ray herself," he remarked surprisingly.

He spoke with an Irish inflection and he looked the Irishman, too ... smooth black hair with a touch of gray at the temples, blue eyes with a light in them, a dimple in his chin.

Betsy felt her color rising. How maddening to blush before his gay assurance!

"I beg your pardon?" she said and remembered to sink into her debutante slouch.

This fashionable pose became her, for she was very slender. (Some girls had to wear special corsets to get the debutante slouch.) She was glad her far boa was tossed lightly over her shoulder.

Mr. O'Farrell — that was the name above his window — continued to look at her.

"Faith, and I'm inter-r-r-ested to meet you!" He rolled his r' s in a fascinating way. "Letters to Miss Betsy Ray take up half that mountain of mail in the library yonder."

"Really?" Betsy forgot her pose. Her smile was a burst of sunshine.

A small space between her teeth in front gave her a look of candor. She had a friendly merry face with brown hair pushed over her cheeks in the soft disarray affected that season, and hazel eyes that glowed now into Mr. O'Farrell's.

Letters from home! Letters from that paradise lost, lying three long days behind her!

"Oh, how wonderful!" she cried.

"Telegrams, too," said Mr. O'Farrell teasingly. "And boxes! I believe there are even some blossoms. Are you traveling alone?"

"Yes... practically."

"Well , I'm going to give you a special place at table so you won't get lonely. You pick it up after we sail."