“And did she anyway?” Sybil was intrigued. There was nothing about him that she could remember in the book Bettina had written many years later. She hadn’t mentioned the incident at all.
“I don’t think so,” Gwyneth said quietly, “but she was very angry at us for about a year. Bettina can hold a grudge for a long time.” It was a side of her Sybil had never seen. She had always seemed very docile and adaptable, and very proper. “She hasn’t been interested in anyone else since. And we don’t want her to be a spinster. It will be even more difficult now with a war on. All the young men will go away. She should be married by now. Bert and I were married when I was eighteen. She’s already a bit late.” It was interesting to hear Gwyneth’s views on the subject. She firmly believed in all the old rules, and so did Bert, no matter how open-minded they were with their new friends. But that was different, they all agreed.
“She seems very unhappy these days,” Sybil commented, and her mother had seen it too.
“I think she’s upset about Josiah. We all are. And they’re very close.”
A few days later, Sybil was up early and saw Bettina downstairs just before she slipped out the door of the house in a light blue dress and a navy blue coat, with a small elegant hat and a heavy veil concealing her face. She looked suddenly very grown up, and Sybil had an eerie sense that something important was happening that her family didn’t know about. She picked up Bettina’s book later that morning and combed it for answers. In the chapter on Josiah leaving to go to war, she saw a few lines and guessed what they meant and what she might be doing. Sybil had no way of warning Bettina’s parents, and it was too late to follow her. Bettina didn’t appear at dinner that night, and a note was hand-delivered to Bert halfway through the meal, which Phillips handed to him at the table. Bert apologized, read it with a grave expression, and handed it to Gwyneth, who looked at him with tears in her eyes as soon as she’d read it too.
“Is everything all right?” Sybil asked her, and touched her hand, fearing it was about Josiah, and Gwyneth dabbed at her eyes as she answered.
“I never thought she’d do something like this. She’s so incredibly foolish. It’s Bettina,” she said, as tears ran down her cheeks. “She must have seen that boy again. The Italian.”
“Is the letter from him?” Sybil asked her, remembering Bettina’s book. It said that her parents had prevented her from marrying the boy she was in love with. They had waited two years and got married when war was declared, before he shipped out.
“It’s from Bettina.” Gwyneth spoke in a whisper. “She married him this afternoon at city hall. He’s shipping out tomorrow, to New York, and then to Europe. She said she’ll be back after he leaves. How could she do this?” Gwyneth choked on a sob. “We tried to reason with her, and now look what she’s done. They’re married.” Augusta was watching them intently, and Bert had just explained it to Blake. Bert looked livid, and Blake felt sorry for him. He was more stoic than his wife, but looked near tears too. Bettina had upset them severely.
Sybil didn’t have the heart to tell her that fate was going to take the upper hand here, just as it would with Josiah. Gwyneth excused herself shortly after, and left the table in tears. She couldn’t bear it any longer, and wanted to lie down. Bert continued to be a gracious host until they left one another at the end of the evening, and Sybil and Blake talked about it that night and worried about them. Having their daughter marry someone unsuitable was a tragedy to them.
Bettina was back the next day, red-eyed and heartbroken after seeing her new husband off at the train in Oakland. She had taken a ferryboat back to the city and still looked windblown at dinner. Her grandmother was furious at her, having heard the whole story by then. Bettina was belligerent, and Bert was unusually silent at dinner, after a stern discussion with his daughter when she got home about how dishonorably she had behaved, sneaking off like a thief and marrying a boy she knew they disapproved of. “And will you work at the fish restaurant with him?”
“He doesn’t work at the restaurant, Father. He’s studying to be a lawyer. He’ll finish his studies after the war.” Bert was still not pleased and cast somber glances at her all through dinner. He had threatened to have the marriage annulled, and she had sworn she’d run away if he did, and live with her in-laws. He believed her, so he agreed to let the marriage stand, under the circumstances. She had spent the night with her husband at a hotel, after their wedding at city hall. She was desperately in love. And her father said he just hoped there would be no issue from it, and that she’d regain her senses when he returned and she saw how different their lives were. Bettina was the most stubborn of his children. Bert was not in a good mood at dinner, until he and Blake talked for a while and he calmed down. The two men agreed that no one could drive you as crazy as your children. Gwyneth still looked upset and shaken, and Bert was cool and disapproving with Bettina for many weeks.
Bettina’s elopement was the main topic of conversation in the family for the entire month, all through May. They reported it to Josiah, and he wrote to his sister and told her she’d been very foolish and upset their parents deeply, and however nice the young man was—and he’d met him in Tahoe too—she would be miserable in the life he’d been born to, which was so different from hers.
Even Magnus and Charlie talked about it when they played in the garden, and Magnus told him his big sister was in trouble for marrying a fish merchant or something like that.
“Sounds smelly to me,” Charlie commented, and Magnus agreed. “Why would she want to marry a man like that?”