THE SECOND-CLASS PASSENGER
Up to a certain point the voyage was like all other voyages. During the
first two days there were passengers who did not appear on deck, but
as the weather was fair for the season of the year, there were fewer
absentees than is usual. Indeed, on the third day the deck chairs were
all filled, people who were given to tramping during their voyages had
begun to walk their customary quota of carefully-measured miles the
day. There were a few pale faces dozing here and there, but the general
aspect of things had begun to be sprightly. Shuffleboard players and
quoit enthusiasts began to bestir themselves, the deck steward appeared
regularly with light repasts of beef tea and biscuits, and the brilliant
hues of red, blue, or yellow novels made frequent spots of colour upon
the promenade. Persons of some initiative went to the length of making
tentative observations to their next-chair neighbours. The second-cabin
passengers were cheerful, and the steerage passengers, having tumbled
up, formed friendly groups and began to joke with each other.
The Worthingtons had plainly the good fortune to be respectable sailors.
They reappeared on the second day and established regular habits, after
the manner of accustomed travellers. Miss Vanderpoel's habits were
regular from the first, and when Salter saw her he was impressed even
more at the outset with her air of being at home instead of on board
ship. Her practically well-chosen corner was an agreeable place to look
at. Her chair was built for ease of angle and width, her cushions were
of dark rich colours, her travelling rugs were of black fox fur, and
she owned an adjustable table for books and accompaniments. She appeared
early in the morning and walked until the sea air crimsoned her cheeks,
she sat and read with evident enjoyment, she talked to her companions
and plainly entertained them.
Salter, being bored and in bad spirits, found himself watching her
rather often, but he knew that but for the small, comic episode of
Tommy, he would have definitely disliked her. The dislike would not have
been fair, but it would have existed in spite of himself. It would
not have been fair because it would have been founded simply upon the
ignoble resentment of envy, upon the poor truth that he was not in the
state of mind to avoid resenting the injustice of fate in bestowing
multi-millions upon one person and his offspring. He resented his own
resentment, but was obliged to acknowledge its existence in his humour.
He himself, especially and peculiarly, had always known the bitterness
of poverty, the humiliation of seeing where money could be well used,
indeed, ought to be used, and at the same time having ground into him
the fact that there was no money to lay one's hand on. He had hated it
even as a boy, because in his case, and that of his people, the whole
thing was undignified and unbecoming. It was humiliating to him now to
bring home to himself the fact that the thing for which he was inclined
to dislike this tall, up-standing girl was her unconscious (he realised
the unconsciousness of it) air of having always lived in the atmosphere
of millions, of never having known a reason why she should not have
anything she had a desire for. Perhaps, upon the whole, he said to
himself, it was his own ill luck and sense of defeat which made her
corner, with its cushions and comforts, her properly attentive maid,
and her cold weather sables expressive of a fortune too colossal to be
decent.
The episode of the plump, despairing Tommy he had liked, however. There
had been a fine naturalness about it and a fine practicalness in her
prompt order to the elderly nurse that the richly-caparisoned donkey
should be sent to her. This had at once made it clear to the donor that
his gift was too valuable to be left behind.
“She did not care twopence for the lot of us,” was his summing up. “She
might have been nothing but the nicest possible warm-hearted nursemaid
or a cottage woman who loved the child.”
He was quite aware that though he had found himself more than once
observing her, she herself had probably not recognised the trivial fact
of his existing upon that other side of the barrier which separated the
higher grade of passenger from the lower. There was, indeed, no reason
why she should have singled him out for observation, and she was, in
fact, too frequently absorbed in her own reflections to be in the
frame of mind to remark her fellow passengers to the extent which was
generally customary with her. During her crossings of the Atlantic she
usually made mental observation of the people on board. This time, when
she was not talking to the Worthingtons, or reading, she was thinking of
the possibilities of her visit to Stornham. She used to walk about the
deck thinking of them and, sitting in her chair, sum them up as her eyes
rested on the rolling and breaking waves.
There were many things to be considered, and one of the first was the
perfectly sane suggestion her father had made.
“Suppose she does not want to be rescued? Suppose you find her a
comfortable fine lady who adores her husband.”
Such a thing was possible, though Bettina did not think it probable. She
intended, however, to prepare herself even for this. If she found Lady
Anstruthers plump and roseate, pleased with herself and her position,
she was quite equal to making her visit appear a casual and conventional
affair.
“I ought to wish it to be so,” she thought, “and, yet, how
disappointingly I should feel she had changed. Still, even ethical
reasons would not excuse one for wishing her to be miserable.” She was a
creature with a number of passionate ideals which warred frequently with
the practical side of her mentality. Often she used to walk up and down
the deck or lean upon the ship's side, her eyes stormy with emotions.
“I do not want to find Rosy a heartless woman, and I do not want to find
her wretched. What do I want? Only the usual thing--that what cannot be
undone had never been done. People are always wishing that.”
She was standing near the second-cabin barrier thinking this, the first
time she saw the passenger with the red hair. She had paused by mere
chance, and while her eyes were stormy with her thought, she suddenly
became conscious that she was looking directly into other eyes as
darkling as her own. They were those of a man on the wrong side of the
barrier. He had a troubled, brooding face, and, as their gaze met,
each of them started slightly and turned away with the sense of having
unconsciously intruded and having been intruded upon.
“That rough-looking man,” she commented to herself, “is as anxious and
disturbed as I am.”
Salter did look rough, it was true. His well-worn clothes had suffered
somewhat from the restrictions of a second-class cabin shared with two
other men. But the aspect which had presented itself to her brief glance
had been not so much roughness of clothing as of mood expressing itself
in his countenance. He was thinking harshly and angrily of the life
ahead of him.
These looks of theirs which had so inadvertently encountered each
other were of that order which sometimes startles one when in passing a
stranger one finds one's eyes entangled for a second in his or hers, as
the case may be. At such times it seems for that instant difficult to
disentangle one's gaze. But neither of these two thought of the other
much, after hurrying away. Each was too fully mastered by personal mood.
There would, indeed, have been no reason for their encountering each
other further but for “the accident,” as it was called when spoken of
afterwards, the accident which might so easily have been a catastrophe.
It occurred that night. This was two nights before they were to land.
Everybody had begun to come under the influence of that cheerfulness of
humour, the sense of relief bordering on gaiety, which generally elates
people when a voyage is drawing to a close. If one has been dull, one
begins to gather one's self together, rejoiced that the boredom is over.
In any case, there are plans to be made, thought of, or discussed.
“You wish to go to Stornham at once?” Mrs. Worthington said to Bettina.
“How pleased Lady Anstruthers and Sir Nigel must be at the idea of
seeing you with them after so long.”
“I can scarcely tell you how I am looking forward to it,” Betty
answered.
She sat in her corner among her cushions looking at the dark water
which seemed to sweep past the ship, and listening to the throb of the
engines. She was not gay. She was wondering how far the plans she had
made would prove feasible. Mrs. Worthington was not aware that her visit
to Stornham Court was to be unannounced. It had not been necessary to
explain the matter. The whole affair was simple and decorous enough.
Miss Vanderpoel was to bid good-bye to her friends and go at once to her
sister, Lady Anstruthers, whose husband's country seat was but a short
journey from London. Bettina and her father had arranged that the fact
should be kept from the society paragraphist. This had required some
adroit management, but had actually been accomplished.
As the waves swished past her, Bettina was saying to herself, “What
will Rosy say when she sees me! What shall I say when I see Rosy? We are
drawing nearer to each other with every wave that passes.”
A fog which swept up suddenly sent them all below rather early. The
Worthingtons laughed and talked a little in their staterooms, but
presently became quiet and had evidently gone to bed. Bettina was
restless and moved about her room alone after she had sent away her
maid. She at last sat down and finished a letter she had been writing to
her father.
“As I near the land,” she wrote, “I feel a sort of excitement. Several
times to-day I have recalled so distinctly the picture of Rosy as I saw
her last, when we all stood crowded upon the wharf at New York to see
her off. She and Nigel were leaning upon the rail of the upper deck.
She looked such a delicate, airy little creature, quite like a pretty
schoolgirl with tears in her eyes. She was laughing and crying at the
same time, and kissing both her hands to us again and again. I was
crying passionately myself, though I tried to conceal the fact, and I
remember that each time I looked from Rosy to Nigel's heavy face the
poignancy of my anguish made me break forth again. I wonder if it was
because I was a child, that he looked such a contemptuous brute, even
when he pretended to smile. It is twelve years since then. I wonder--how
I wonder, what I shall find.”
She stopped writing and sat a few moments, her chin upon her hand,
thinking. Suddenly she sprang to her feet in alarm. The stillness of the
night was broken by wild shouts, a running of feet outside, a tumult of
mingled sounds and motion, a dash and rush of surging water, a strange
thumping and straining of engines, and a moment later she was hurled
from one side of her stateroom to the other by a crashing shock which
seemed to heave the ship out of the sea, shuddering as if the end of all
things had come.
It was so sudden and horrible a thing that, though she had only been
flung upon a pile of rugs and cushions and was unhurt, she felt as if
she had been struck on the head and plunged into wild delirium. Above
the sound of the dashing and rocking waves, the straining and roaring of
hacking engines and the pandemonium of voices rose from one end of the
ship to the other, one wild, despairing, long-drawn shriek of women and
children. Bettina turned sick at the mad terror in it--the insensate,
awful horror.
“Something has run into us!” she gasped, getting up with her heart
leaping in her throat.
She could hear the Worthingtons' tempest of terrified confusion through
the partitions between them, and she remembered afterwards that in the
space of two or three seconds, and in the midst of their clamour, a
hundred incongruous thoughts leaped through her brain. Perhaps they were
this moment going down. Now she knew what it was like! This thing she
had read of in newspapers! Now she was going down in mid-ocean, she,
Betty Vanderpoel! And, as she sprang to clutch her fur coat, there
flashed before her mental vision a gruesome picture of the headlines
in the newspapers and the inevitable reference to the millions she
represented.
“I must keep calm,” she heard herself say, as she fastened the
long coat, clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering. “Poor
Daddy--poor Daddy!”
Maddening new sounds were all about her, sounds of water dashing and
churning, sounds of voices bellowing out commands, straining and leaping
sounds of the engines. What was it--what was it? She must at least
find out. Everybody was going mad in the staterooms, the stewards were
rushing about, trying to quiet people, their own voices shaking and
breaking into cracked notes. If the worst had happened, everyone would
be fighting for life in a few minutes. Out on deck she must get and find
out for herself what the worst was.
She was the first woman outside, though the wails and shrieks swelled
below, and half-dressed, ghastly creatures tumbled gasping up the
companion-way.
“What is it?” she heard. “My God! what's happened? Where's the Captain!
Are we going down! The boats! The boats!”
It was useless to speak to the seamen rushing by. They did not see, much
less hear! She caught sight of a man who could not be a sailor, since
he was standing still. She made her way to him, thankful that she had
managed to stop her teeth chattering.
“What has happened to us?” she said.
He turned and looked at her straitly. He was the second-cabin passenger
with the red hair.
“A tramp steamer has run into us in the fog,” he answered.
“How much harm is done?”
“They are trying to find out. I am standing here on the chance of
hearing something. It is madness to ask any man questions.”
They spoke to each other in short, sharp sentences, knowing there was no
time to lose.
“Are you horribly frightened?” he asked.
She stamped her foot.
“I hate it--I hate it!” she said, flinging out her hand towards the
black, heaving water. “The plunge--the choking! No one could hate it
more. But I want to DO something!”
She was turning away when he caught her hand and held her.
“Wait a second,” he said. “I hate it as much as you do, but I believe we
two can keep our heads. Those who can do that may help, perhaps. Let us
try to quiet the people. As soon as I find out anything I will come to
your friends' stateroom. You are near the boats there. Then I shall go
back to the second cabin. You work on your side and I'll work on mine.
That's all.”
“Thank you. Tell the Worthingtons. I'm going to the saloon deck.” She
was off as she spoke.
Upon the stairway she found herself in the midst of a struggling
panic-stricken mob, tripping over each other on the steps, and clutching
at any garment nearest, to drag themselves up as they fell, or were on
the point of falling. Everyone was crying out in question and appeal.
Bettina stood still, a firm, tall obstacle, and clutched at the hysteric
woman who was hurled against her.
“I've been on deck,” she said. “A tramp steamer has run into us. No one
has time to answer questions. The first thing to do is to put on warm
clothes and secure the life belts in case you need them.”
At once everyone turned upon her as if she was an authority. She replied
with almost fierce determination to the torrent of words poured forth.
“I know nothing further--only that if one is not a fool one must make
sure of clothes and belts.”
“Quite right, Miss Vanderpoel,” said one young man, touching his cap in
nervous propitiation.
“Stop screaming,” Betty said mercilessly to the woman. “It's
idiotic--the more noise you make the less chance you have. How can men
keep their wits among a mob of shrieking, mad women?”
That the remote Miss Vanderpoel should have emerged from her luxurious
corner to frankly bully the lot of them was an excellent shock for the
crowd. Men, who had been in danger of losing their heads and becoming
as uncontrolled as the women, suddenly realised the fact and pulled
themselves together. Bettina made her way at once to the Worthingtons'
staterooms.
There she found frenzy reigning. Blanche and Marie Worthington were
darting to and fro, dragging about first one thing and then another.
They were silly with fright, and dashed at, and dropped alternately,
life belts, shoes, jewel cases, and wraps, while they sobbed and cried
out hysterically. “Oh, what shall we do with mother! What shall we do!”
The manners of Betty Vanderpoel's sharp schoolgirl days returned to her
in full force. She seized Blanche by the shoulder and shook her.
“What a donkey you are!” she said. “Put on your clothes. There they
are,” pushing her to the place where they hung. “Marie--dress yourself
this moment. We may be in no real danger at all.”
“Do you think not! Oh, Betty!” they wailed in concert. “Oh, what shall
we do with mother!”
“Where is your mother?”
“She fainted--Louise----”
Betty was in Mrs. Worthington's cabin before they had finished speaking.
The poor woman had fainted, and struck her cheek against a chair. She
lay on the floor in her nightgown, with blood trickling from a cut on
her face. Her maid, Louise, was wringing her hands, and doing nothing
whatever.
“If you don't bring the brandy this minute,” said the beautiful Miss
Vanderpoel, “I'll box your ears. Believe me, my girl.” She looked so
capable of doing it that the woman was startled and actually offended
into a return of her senses. Miss Vanderpoel had usually the best
possible manners in dealing with her inferiors.
Betty poured brandy down Mrs. Worthington's throat and applied strong
smelling salts until she gasped back to consciousness. She had just
burst into frightened sobs, when Betty heard confusion and exclamations
in the adjoining room. Blanche and Marie had cried out, and a man's
voice was speaking. Betty went to them. They were in various stages of
undress, and the red-haired second-cabin passenger was standing at the
door.
“I promised Miss Vanderpoel----” he was saying, when Betty came forward.
He turned to her promptly.
“I come to tell you that it seems absolutely to be relied on that there
is no immediate danger. The tramp is more injured than we are.”
“Oh, are you sure? Are you sure?” panted Blanche, catching at his
sleeve.
“Yes,” he answered. “Can I do anything for you?” he said to Bettina, who
was on the point of speaking.
“Will you be good enough to help me to assist Mrs. Worthington into her
berth, and then try to find the doctor.”
He went into the next room without speaking. To Mrs. Worthington he
spoke briefly a few words of reassurance. He was a powerful man, and
laid her on her berth without dragging her about uncomfortably, or
making her feel that her weight was greater than even in her most
desponding moments she had suspected. Even her helplessly hysteric mood
was illuminated by a ray of grateful appreciation.
“Oh, thank you--thank you,” she murmured. “And you are quite sure there
is no actual danger, Mr.----?”
“Salter,” he terminated for her. “You may feel safe. The damage is
really only slight, after all.”
“It is so good of you to come and tell us,” said the poor lady, still
tremulous. “The shock was awful. Our introduction has been an alarming
one. I--I don't think we have met during the voyage.”
“No,” replied Salter. “I am in the second cabin.”
“Oh! thank you. It's so good of you,” she faltered amiably, for want of
inspiration. As he went out of the stateroom, Salter spoke to Bettina.
“I will send the doctor, if I can find him,” he said. “I think, perhaps,
you had better take some brandy yourself. I shall.”
“It's queer how little one seems to realise even that there are
second-cabin passengers,” commented Mrs. Worthington feebly. “That was a
nice man, and perfectly respectable. He even had a kind of--of manner.”