ON BOARD THE “MERIDIANA”
A large transatlantic steamer lying at the wharf on a brilliant, sunny
morning just before its departure is an interesting and suggestive
object to those who are fond of following suggestion to its end. One
sometimes wonders if it is possible that the excitement in the dock
atmosphere could ever become a thing to which one was sufficiently
accustomed to be able to regard it as among things commonplace. The
rumbling and rattling of waggons and carts, the loading and unloading of
boxes and bales, the people who are late, and the people who are early,
the faces which are excited, and the faces which are sad, the trunks and
bales, and cranes which creak and groan, the shouts and cries, the hurry
and confusion of movement, notwithstanding that every day has seen them
all for years, have a sort of perennial interest to the looker-on.
This is, perhaps, more especially the case when the looker-on is to be
a passenger on the outgoing ship; and the exhilaration of his point of
view may greatly depend upon the reason for his voyage and the class
by which he travels. Gaiety and youth usually appear upon the promenade
deck, having taken saloon passage. Dulness, commerce, and eld mingling
with them, it is true, but with a discretion which does not seem to
dominate. Second-class passengers wear a more practical aspect, and
youth among them is rarer and more grave. People who must travel second
and third class make voyages for utilitarian reasons. Their object is
usually to better themselves in one way or another. When they are going
from Liverpool to New York, it is usually to enter upon new efforts and
new labours. When they are returning from New York to Liverpool, it is
often because the new life has proved less to be depended upon than
the old, and they are bearing back with them bitterness of soul and
discouragement of spirit.
On the brilliant spring morning when the huge liner Meridiana was to
sail for England a young man, who was a second-class passenger, leaned
upon the ship's rail and watched the turmoil on the wharf with a
detached and not at all buoyant air.
His air was detached because he had other things in his mind than those
merely passing before him, and he was not buoyant because they were not
cheerful or encouraging subjects for reflection. He was a big young man,
well hung together, and carrying himself well; his face was square-jawed
and rugged, and he had dark red hair restrained by its close cut from
waving strongly on his forehead. His eyes were red brown, and a few dark
freckles marked his clear skin. He was of the order of man one looks at
twice, having looked at him once, though one does not in the least know
why, unless one finally reaches some degree of intimacy.
He watched the vehicles, heavy and light, roll into the big shed-like
building and deposit their freight; he heard the voices and caught the
sentences of instruction and comment; he saw boxes and bales hauled from
the dock side to the deck and swung below with the rattling of machinery
and chains. But these formed merely a noisy background to his mood,
which was self-centred and gloomy. He was one of those who go back to
their native land knowing themselves conquered. He had left England two
years before, feeling obstinately determined to accomplish a certain
difficult thing, but forces of nature combining with the circumstances
of previous education and living had beaten him. He had lost two years
and all the money he had ventured. He was going back to the place he
had come from, and he was carrying with him a sense of having been used
hardly by fortune, and in a way he had not deserved.
He had gone out to the West with the intention of working hard and using
his hands as well as his brains; he had not been squeamish; he had, in
fact, laboured like a ploughman; and to be obliged to give in had been
galling and bitter. There are human beings into whose consciousness of
themselves the possibility of being beaten does not enter. This man was
one of them.
The ship was of the huge and luxuriously-fitted class by which the rich
and fortunate are transported from one continent to another. Passengers
could indulge themselves in suites of rooms and live sumptuously. As the
man leaning on the rail looked on, he saw messengers bearing baskets and
boxes of fruit and flowers with cards and notes attached, hurrying up
the gangway to deliver them to waiting stewards. These were the farewell
offerings to be placed in staterooms, or to await their owners on the
saloon tables. Salter--the second-class passenger's name was Salter--had
seen a few such offerings before on the first crossing. But there had
not been such lavishness at Liverpool. It was the New Yorkers who
were sumptuous in such matters, as he had been told. He had also heard
casually that the passenger list on this voyage was to record important
names, the names of multi-millionaire people who were going over for the
London season.
Two stewards talking near him, earlier in the morning, had been exulting
over the probable largesse such a list would result in at the end of the
passage.
“The Worthingtons and the Hirams and the John William Spayters,” said
one. “They travel all right. They know what they want and they want a
good deal, and they're willing to pay for it.”
“Yes. They're not school teachers going over to improve their minds and
contriving to cross in a big ship by economising in everything else.
Miss Vanderpoel's sailing with the Worthingtons. She's got the best
suite all to herself. She'll bring back a duke or one of those prince
fellows. How many millions has Vanderpoel?”
“How many millions. How many hundred millions!” said his companion,
gloating cheerfully over the vastness of unknown possibilities. “I've
crossed with Miss Vanderpoel often, two or three times when she was in
short frocks. She's the kind of girl you read about. And she's got money
enough to buy in half a dozen princes.”
“There are New Yorkers who won't like it if she does,” returned the
other. “There's been too much money going out of the country. Her
suite is crammed full of Jack roses, now, and there are boxes waiting
outside.”
Salter moved away and heard no more. He moved away, in fact, because he
was conscious that to a man in his case, this dwelling upon millions,
this plethora of wealth, was a little revolting. He had walked down
Broadway and seen the price of Jacqueminot roses, and he was not soothed
or allured at this particular moment by the picture of a girl whose
half-dozen cabins were crowded with them.
“Oh, the devil!” he said. “It sounds vulgar.” And he walked up and
down fast, squaring his shoulders, with his hands in the pockets of his
rough, well-worn coat. He had seen in England something of the American
young woman with millionaire relatives. He had been scarcely more than a
boy when the American flood first began to rise. He had been old enough,
however, to hear people talk. As he had grown older, Salter had observed
its advance. Englishmen had married American beauties. American fortunes
had built up English houses, which otherwise threatened to fall into
decay. Then the American faculty of adaptability came into play.
Anglo-American wives became sometimes more English than their husbands.
They proceeded to Anglicise their relations, their relations' clothes,
even, in time, their speech. They carried or sent English conventions to
the States, their brothers ordered their clothes from West End tailors,
their sisters began to wear walking dresses, to play out-of-door games
and take active exercise. Their mothers tentatively took houses in
London or Paris, there came a period when their fathers or uncles,
serious or anxious business men, the most unsporting of human beings,
rented castles or manors with huge moors and covers attached and
entertained large parties of shooters or fishers who could be lured to
any quarter by the promise of the particular form of slaughter for which
they burned.
“Sheer American business perspicacity, that,” said Salter, as he marched
up and down, thinking of a particular case of this order. “There's
something admirable in the practical way they make for what they want.
They want to amalgamate with English people, not for their own sake,
but because their women like it, and so they offer the men thousands of
acres full of things to kill. They can get them by paying for them,
and they know how to pay.” He laughed a little, lifting his square
shoulders. “Balthamor's six thousand acres of grouse moor and Elsty's
salmon fishing are rented by the Chicago man. He doesn't care twopence
for them, and does not know a pheasant from a caper-cailzie, but his
wife wants to know men who do.”
It must be confessed that Salter was of the English who were not pleased
with the American Invasion. In some of his views of the matter he was a
little prehistoric and savage, but the modern side of his character
was too intelligent to lack reason. He was by no means entirely modern,
however; a large part of his nature belonged to the age in which men
had fought fiercely for what they wanted to get or keep, and when the
amenities of commerce had not become powerful factors in existence.
“They're not a bad lot,” he was thinking at this moment. “They are
rather fine in a way. They are clever and powerful and interesting--more
so than they know themselves. But it is all commerce. They don't come
and fight with us and get possession of us by force. They come and
buy us. They buy our land and our homes, and our landowners, for that
matter--when they don't buy them, they send their women to marry them,
confound it!”
He took half a dozen more strides and lifted his shoulders again.
“Beggarly lot as I am,” he said, “unlikely as it seems that I can marry
at all, I'm hanged if I don't marry an Englishwoman, if I give my life
to a woman at all.”
But, in fact, he was of the opinion that he should never give his life
to any woman, and this was because he was, at this period, also of the
opinion that there was small prospect of its ever being worth the giving
or taking. It had been one of those lives which begin untowardly and are
ruled by unfair circumstances.
He had a particularly well-cut and expressive mouth, and, as he went
back to the ship's side and leaned on his folded arms on the rail again,
its curves concealed a good deal of strong feeling.
The wharf was busier than before. In less than half an hour the ship
was to sail. The bustle and confusion had increased. There were people
hurrying about looking for friends, and there were people scribbling
off excited farewell messages at the telegraph office. The situation was
working up to its climax. An observing looker-on might catch glimpses of
emotional scenes. Many of the passengers were already on board, parties
of them accompanied by their friends were making their way up the
gangplank.
Salter had just been watching a luxuriously cared-for little invalid
woman being carried on deck in a reclining chair, when his attention
was attracted by the sound of trampling hoofs and rolling wheels. Two
noticeably big and smart carriages had driven up to the stopping-place
for vehicles. They were gorgeously of the latest mode, and their tall,
satin-skinned horses jangled silver chains and stepped up to their
noses.
“Here come the Worthingtons, whosoever they may be,” thought
Salter. “The fine up-standing young woman is, no doubt, the
multi-millionairess.”
The fine, up-standing young woman WAS the multi-millionairess. Bettina
walked up the gangway in the sunshine, and the passengers upon the upper
deck craned their necks to look at her. Her carriage of her head and
shoulders invariably made people turn to look.
“My, ain't she fine-looking!” exclaimed an excited lady beholder above.
“I guess that must be Miss Vanderpoel, the multi-millionaire's daughter.
Jane told me she'd heard she was crossing this trip.”
Bettina heard her. She sometimes wondered if she was ever pointed out,
if her name was ever mentioned without the addition of the explanatory
statement that she was the multi-millionaire's daughter. As a child she
had thought it ridiculous and tiresome, as she had grown older she had
felt that only a remarkable individuality could surmount a fact so ever
present.
It was like a tremendous quality which overshadowed everything else.
“It wounds my vanity, I have no doubt,” she had said to her father.
“Nobody ever sees me, they only see you and your millions and millions
of dollars.”
Salter watched her pass up the gangway. The phase through which he
was living was not of the order which leads a man to dwell upon the
beautiful and inspiriting as expressed by the female image. Success and
the hopefulness which engender warmth of soul and quickness of heart
are required for the development of such allurements. He thought of the
Vanderpoel millions as the lady on the deck had thought of them, and
in his mind somehow the girl herself appeared to express them. The rich
up-springing sweep of her abundant hair, her height, her colouring, the
remarkable shade and length of her lashes, the full curve of her mouth,
all, he told himself, looked expensive, as if even nature herself had
been given carte blanche, and the best possible articles procured for
the money.
“She moves,” he thought sardonically, “as if she were perfectly
aware that she could pay for anything. An unlimited income, no doubt,
establishes in the owner the equivalent to a sense of rank.”
He changed his position for one in which he could command a view of the
promenade deck where the arriving passengers were gradually appearing.
He did this from the idle and careless curiosity which, though it is not
a matter of absolute interest, does not object to being entertained by
passing objects. He saw the Worthington party reappear. It struck Salter
that they looked not so much like persons coming on board a ship, as
like people who were returning to a hotel to which they were accustomed,
and which was also accustomed to them. He argued that they had probably
crossed the Atlantic innumerable times in this particular steamer.
The deck stewards knew them and made obeisance with empressement. Miss
Vanderpoel nodded to the steward Salter had heard discussing her. She
gave him a smile of recognition and paused a moment to speak to him.
Salter saw her sweep the deck with her glance and then designate a
sequestered corner, such as the experienced voyager would recognise as
being desirably sheltered. She was evidently giving an order concerning
the placing of her deck chair, which was presently brought. An elegantly
neat and decorous person in black, who was evidently her maid, appeared
later, followed by a steward who carried cushions and sumptuous fur
rugs. These being arranged, a delightful corner was left alluringly
prepared. Miss Vanderpoel, after her instructions to the deck steward,
had joined her party and seemed to be awaiting some arrival anxiously.
“She knows how to do herself well,” Salter commented, “and she realises
that forethought is a practical factor. Millions have been productive of
composure. It is not unnatural, either.”
It was but a short time later that the warning bell was rung. Stewards
passed through the crowds calling out, “All ashore, if you please--all
ashore.” Final embraces were in order on all sides. People shook hands
with fervour and laughed a little nervously. Women kissed each other and
poured forth hurried messages to be delivered on the other side of
the Atlantic. Having kissed and parted, some of them rushed back and
indulged in little clutches again. Notwithstanding that the tide of
humanity surges across the Atlantic almost as regularly as the daily
tide surges in on its shores, a wave of emotion sweeps through every
ship at such partings.
Salter stood on deck and watched the crowd dispersing. Some of the
people were laughing and some had red eyes. Groups collected on the
wharf and tried to say still more last words to their friends crowding
against the rail.
The Worthingtons kept their places and were still looking out, by this
time disappointedly. It seemed that the friend or friends they
expected were not coming. Salter saw that Miss Vanderpoel looked more
disappointed than the rest. She leaned forward and strained her eyes to
see. Just at the last moment there was the sound of trampling horses and
rolling wheels again. From the arriving carriage descended hastily an
elderly woman, who lifted out a little boy excited almost to tears. He
was a dear, chubby little person in flapping sailor trousers, and he
carried a splendidly-caparisoned toy donkey in his arms. Salter could
not help feeling slightly excited himself as they rushed forward. He
wondered if they were passengers who would be left behind.
They were not passengers, but the arrivals Miss Vanderpoel had been
expecting so ardently. They had come to say good-bye to her and were too
late for that, at least, as the gangway was just about to be withdrawn.
Miss Vanderpoel leaned forward with an amazingly fervid expression on
her face.
“Tommy! Tommy!” she cried to the little boy. “Here I am, Tommy. We can
say good-bye from here.”
The little boy, looking up, broke into a wail of despair.
“Betty! Betty! Betty!” he cried. “I wanted to kiss you, Betty.”
Betty held out her arms. She did it with entire forgetfulness of the
existence of any lookers-on, and with such outreaching love on her
face that it seemed as if the child must feel her touch. She made a
beautiful, warm, consoling bud of her mouth.
“We'll kiss each other from here, Tommy,” she said. “See, we can. Kiss
me, and I will kiss you.”
Tommy held out his arms and the magnificent donkey. “Betty,” he cried,
“I brought you my donkey. I wanted to give it to you for a present,
because you liked it.”
Miss Vanderpoel bent further forward and addressed the elderly woman.
“Matilda,” she said, “please pack Master Tommy's present and send it to
me! I want it very much.”
Tender smiles irradiated the small face. The gangway was withdrawn, and,
amid the familiar sounds of a big craft's first struggle, the ship began
to move. Miss Vanderpoel still bent forward and held out her arms.
“I will soon come back, Tommy,” she cried, “and we are always friends.”
The child held out his short blue serge arms also, and Salter watching
him could not but be touched for all his gloom of mind.
“I wanted to kiss you, Betty,” he heard in farewell. “I did so want to
kiss you.”
And so they steamed away upon the blue.