quite devoted to Mrs. Ess Kay the first day out; but she was cold to
them all, I couldn't think why, as some of them seemed very nice, and
she had always appeared rather to like being with men. I asked Sally
about it, but she laughed, and said I might perhaps solve the mystery
for myself when we were at Newport, if I remembered it then.
I never heard of such breakfasts and luncheons as they have on this
ship, and the first menu I saw surprised me so much, that I couldn't
believe they really had and could produce all those things if anybody
was inconsiderate enough to ask for them. I hardly supposed there were
so many things to eat in the world. But the captain heard me exclaiming
to Sally, so he smiled, and told me to test the menu by ordering a bit
of everything on it; he'd guarantee that nothing would be missed out.
This was at breakfast the second day; and when he saw that I ate
several dear little round things, shaped like cream-coloured doyleys,
which are called pancakes (though they aren't a bit like ours) with
some perfectly divine stuff named maple syrup, he said my taking such a
fancy to American products was a sign that I should marry an American.
What nonsense! As if I would dream of marrying, especially a foreigner.
But for all that, pancakes and maple syrup are delicious. I've had them
every day since for breakfast, after finishing a great orange four
times the natural size, which isn't _really_ an orange, because it's a
grape fruit. You have it on your plate cut in two halves, with ice in
each, and you scoop the inside out of a lot of tiny pockets, with a
teaspoon. You think when you first see it, that you can't eat more than
half; but instead, you eat every bit, and sometimes if the morning is
hot, you even wish you could have more; though of course you wouldn't
be so greedy as to ask.
It was on the second day out, too, that all my troubles began--and in a
queer way which nobody could have guessed would lead to anything
disagreeable.
In the afternoon I was reading in my deck-chair, drawn close to Mrs.
Ess Kay's side, when that Mrs. Van der Windt whom Sally called a silly
old thing, toddled up and spoke to us. "Do come and watch them dancing
in the steerage," she said. "It's such fun."
Mrs. Ess Kay likes sitting still on shipboard better than anything
else, but it seems that Mrs. Van der Windt is so important that if all
the Four Hundred Sally told me about were pruned away, except about
twenty-five, she would be among the number left; so probably that is
the reason why Mrs. Ess Kay takes long walks up and down the deck with
her, though it makes her giddy to walk, and Mrs. Van der Windt is not
in the least entertaining.
She got up now, like a lamb about to be led to the slaughter, except
that she smiled bravely, which the lamb would not be able to bring
itself to do. "Come, Betty," she said to me, "it will amuse you."
"Yes, do come, Lady Betty," repeated Mrs. Van der Windt; whereupon I
obeyed, little knowing what I was laying up for myself.
Our deck is amidships. Aft, on a level with ours, is the second-class
deck; and for'rard, down below, like looking into a pit, is the
steerage. We walked to the rail, over which quite a number of men were
leaning, to see what was going on, and several moved aside to give us
room. I didn't like to take their places away, especially as they were
laughing and enjoying themselves, and I could hear the sound of dance
music coming up from below (such odd-sounding music!), but Mrs. Ess Kay
murmured to me that I mustn't refuse. "American men are never so
happy," she said, "as when they're giving up something for a woman.
They're used to it."
And evidently she, as an American woman, was used to taking it. She and
Mrs. Van der Windt slipped into the vacant spaces with a bare "thank
you," and I had to follow their example. We peered down over the rail;
and there was a sight which would have been comical, if it hadn't been
pathetic.
On rather a rough-looking deck, about twelve feet or more below us, a
dense crowd was collected round two small squares, which they purposely
left open. Besides those little squares, every inch was occupied. There
wouldn't have been any more room for even a baby to sit down than there
was in the Black Hole of Calcutta. In the crowd were old men, young men
and boys, all poorly dressed; and old women, young women and girls, big
and little. They wore crude, vivid colours, and more than half of them
had bright handkerchiefs tied over their heads. They scarcely took any
notice of the first-class passengers staring down superciliously or
pityingly at their poor amusements; they were far too much absorbed in
the dancing which was going on busily--I can't say gaily--in the two
hollow squares. In one of these an elderly, pinched little man who
looked almost half-witted, was monotonously scraping a battered fiddle,
for two solemn couples to dance round and round, always on the same
axis. But the other "dancing salon" was more lively. There a man
dressed like a buffoon, with a tall hat, a lobster claw for a nose, a
uniform with big red flannel epaulettes and pasteboard buttons covered
with gold paper, was pretending to conduct the band. And what a band it
was!
It consisted of four sailors, rather sheep-faced and self-conscious.
One musical instrument was a wooden box rigged up with strings and a
long handle; another was formed from a couple of huge soup-spoons tied
together, on which the player beat rhythmically with a smaller spoon;
the third was a poker, dangling from a string, banged heartily with an
enormous nail as it swung to and fro; the fourth was a queer, home-made
drum, which looked as if it had been made out of a wooden bandbox.
Somehow they contrived to coax out music of a sort, and a few young men
and girls were solemnly gyrating to it in a way to make you giddy even
to watch. When a man thought he had had enough, or wanted to dance with
another girl, he dropped his partner with alarming suddenness, bowed
stiffly without smile or word, and left her _plante la_. It was
evidently etiquette not to speak to your partner. At the end of a
dance, the conductor with the lobster-claw nose looked up to our deck,
bowing low with his hand on his heart, and then all the audience
leaning over the rail began fumbling in their pockets if they were men,
or opening their purses or gold bags if they were women. Down poured a
shower of small silver and copper, little boys scrambling to pick it
up, and hand it to the conductor, who would, Mrs. Van der Windt said,
divide the money among the members of his quaint band.
I had a few shillings with me, and I'd been so much amused that I felt
like being generous. Luckily, Mother couldn't see me, and scold! I took
half a dozen coins--shillings and sixpences--and wrapping them
hurriedly up in half the cover torn off a magazine I was reading, I
aimed the little parcel to fall at the comic conductor's feet.
Generally I can throw fairly straight, for Stan took some pains with
that part of my education when I was a small girl; but just at that
instant someone standing next me moved, knocked me on the elbow, and
spoilt my aim.
Instead of falling in front of Mr. Lobster-Claw, the parcel hit the ear
of a very tall young man among the crowd below, who had been standing
with his back to me. He turned quickly, not knowing what had happened,
glanced up and caught my eyes, as I was looking down quite distressed.
[Illustration: "_He turned around quickly, glanced up and caught my
eyes, as I was looking down, quite distressed_"]
I had noticed his figure in the crush, because he towered nearly a head
over everyone else, and I had a dim impression that he had good
shoulders; but seeing his face gave me a great surprise.
It was as different from all the rest of the steerage faces as day is
from night, and somehow it gave me quite a shock that such a man should
be among those others, as if something must be wrong with the world, or
it could not happen. I had even a guilty sort of thrill, as if I had no
right to be well-dressed and prosperous, staring at him and his
companions as though they were a show which we others paid to
see--daring to amuse ourselves with the hard, strange conditions of
their lives.
I've heard Mother say that good blood is sure to prove itself; that a
gentleman can't look like a common man, even in rags. Stan disputes
that theory with her, when he isn't too lazy, and wants to bet he could
so disguise himself that she would take him for a green grocer or a
fishmonger, who have the air of being commoner than other men, I
think--at least in our village at Battlemead--because they wear fat
tufts of curls frothing out over their foreheads from under their caps,
which are always plaid and made of cloth.
Anyway, if Mother is right, this man in the steerage must have the
bluest of blood in his veins, for I never saw one with clearer, nobler
features. And yet, he doesn't give the impression of a broken-down
gentleman who has gone the pace and paid for it by stumbling into the
depths. I thought, as he looked up straight into my face that first
time, (and I think still) that no face could be finer or more manly
than his. Brown--deep brown it is, like bronze, and clean-shaved (not
rough and scrubby), with dark grey eyes (I knew at once they were grey
because the light struck into them) rimmed with black lashes, so long
you couldn't help noticing them; black eyebrows and hair short and
sleek like Stan's, or any other well-groomed man one knows. Besides,
commonness shows in people's mouths more than anywhere else; it's hard
to define, but it's there; and this man's mouth is the best part of his
face--unless it's the chin; or perhaps the nose, I'm not quite sure
which, though I've thought a good deal about them all, because of the
mystery of finding such a man in such an unsuitable place. It would be
just the same if you saw a tall palm suddenly shooting up in the
kitchen-garden, and couldn't find out how it had been planted there.
I'm afraid I must have shown how surprised I was, and admiring, too,
maybe (how can one keep from admiring what is fine and noble, whether
it's a strange person's face, or the profile of a mountain against a
sky at sunset?) for the handsome steerage passenger looked at me a
long, long instant as if he were as much astonished as I was; and yet
with such a nice look, that instead of being annoyed, I couldn't help
being pleased.
In the meantime the little packet of money had fallen on the deck; but
though it had struck him from behind, he seemed to realise exactly what
had happened, and stooping down, he picked it up. Then he raised his
hand high, so that I could see he had the crumpled ball of paper in it;
and edging his way determinedly but not at all roughly, through the
crowd, he opened the parcel and gave the money to the conductor.
"What a splendid-looking man!" I said in a low voice to Mrs. Ess Kay.
"Isn't it extraordinary that he should be in the steerage?"
"Come away, my dear child," she answered. "I can't have you standing
here to be stared at by low creatures like that. The fellow's not in
the _least_ splendid-looking. He's only a big, hulking animal. Don't
take to making up romances about the steerage passengers, my love.
They're not worth bothering your little head about, because if they
weren't born for that sort of thing, they wouldn't be there, I assure
you."
I didn't say anything more, though I was vexed with her, both for being
so stupidly conventional, and for speaking to me in such a loud tone
that she attracted people's attention.
We went back to our deck-chairs, and there was nothing to remind me of
the little episode except the torn cover of my magazine, on which, I
now remembered, Sally Woodburn had scrawled my name over and over again
in pencil, just in idleness, while she and I had been talking that
morning. If Mrs. Ess Kay had known, no doubt she would have been
furious that a piece of paper with my name on it should have gone down
into the steerage. But I didn't mind, for I remembered that the young
man had opened the parcel, given the money to the conductor, and kept
the cover, which probably he had soon after thrown overboard, or
twisted up to light a pipe.
Nothing more happened that day; but there are two nice American girls
on board, about my own age or a little older (they _seem_ years older,
for they are so charming and self-possessed) and Mrs. Ess Kay encourages
me to like them, as they are in Mrs. Van der Windt's party. I grew
quite well acquainted with them the third day out, and they asked me to
go and watch the people in the steerage, who had a little trick dog
which was lots of fun. I went, and saw the bronze young man again. He
was standing with his arms folded across his blue-flannel-shirted
chest, leaning against one of the supports of a kind of bridge, looking
up towards the first-class deck. Our eyes met as they had before, and I
was so absurd that I felt myself blushing. I could have boxed my own
ears; and though the trained dog really was a pet, I didn't stay long.
It is strange how certain kinds of eyes haunt one. You, see them in the
air, as if they were really looking at you--especially when you are
just dropping off to sleep. I think grey ones do this more than others.
Perhaps it is because they are more piercing.
But it was on the fourth day that the climax came,--the climax which
has ended by upsetting me so much, and has made everything so
uncomfortable.
The weather was glorious--all blue and gold after a sulky, leaden
day--and there was dancing down on the steerage deck again. Though it
was so fine, the water was not smooth like a floor as it had been at
first, but broken into indigo waves ruffled irregularly with silver
lace and edged with shimmering pearl fringe.
The same performance was going on, down there on the crowded deck, that
I'd seen the first day, and Sally Woodburn and I, who had been
walking--counting the times we went round, to make two miles--stopped
to glance at the show.
"There's that good-looking man Cousin Katherine classifies as a hulking
animal," said Sally. "I must really consult the dictionary for a
definition of the word 'hulking.' I don't know whether it's a verb or
adjective, do you?"
"No, I don't," said I. "But whichever it is, I'm sure he doesn't or
isn't. He's a gentleman, and something strange has happened or he
wouldn't be there. I do think it's a shame. It must be horrible."
"Don't you think Cousin Katherine knows more about such persons than
you?" asked Sally, and there was such a funny quaver in her voice that
I turned to see what it meant. She was laughing, but whether at me or
at Mrs. Ess Kay, or at the man with the Lobster-Claw nose, I couldn't
tell; and before I could answer her question by asking another,
something happened which put the whole conversation out of my mind.
The ship curtseyed to a wave of more importance than any that had gone
before, then righted herself quickly. We slid a little, everybody who
could catching hold of the rail or of some friend's arm, laughing; but
down on the steerage deck there rose a cry which wasn't laughter.
"Child overboard!" someone screamed. And I realised with a horrid
feeling like suffocation, that a tiny boy down below, who had climbed
up on the rail to watch the dancing, was missing.
It was a woman who had screamed, and everything followed so quickly
that my mind was confused, as if a whirlwind had rushed through it and
blown all the impressions on top of one another, in a heap. There was a
babel of voices on the steerage deck, more cries, and shouts, and
screams, and people surged in a solid wave toward the rail to look
over. But out of that wave sprang one figure separating itself from the
other atoms; and then I heard myself give a cry, too, for the man who
had been in my thoughts had thrown off his coat and vaulted over the
rail into the sea.
"Jove! he'll be caught by the propeller!" I heard somebody near me say.
I turned sick. The thought of his life being crushed out while we all
looked on, helpless, was awful. The sea was terrible enough in
itself--the great, wide, merciless, blue water, which sparkled so
coldly, and laughed in its power--but to be crunched up by the jaws of
a monster--I shut my eyes, and couldn't open them until I heard men
saying the strong wind to starboard might save him. I believe I must
have been unconsciously praying, and my hands were clasped so tightly
together that afterwards my fingers ached.
People on our deck made a rush towards the stern, on the port side, for
the ship had been steaming so fast that already we were forging away
from the child who had fallen and the man who had jumped after him.
Sally and I were carried along with the rush. She seized me by the
hand, but we didn't speak a word. If dear friends, instead of two
strangers in a far remote sphere of life, had been in deadly danger, I
don't think the sickness at my heart could have been worse. I would
have given years if at that moment I could have had the magical power
to stop the ship instantly, with one wave of my hand.
But it was being stopped, by another power than mine. I felt the deck
shiver under my feet, like a thoroughbred horse, pulled on to his
haunches. The accident had been seen from the bridge; an order to stop
the ship had been telegraphed down to the engine-room, and obeyed.
Still, when Sally Woodburn and I had been carried by the crowd far
enough towards the stern to look out over the blue wilderness of water
we were leaving behind, the ship's heart hadn't ceased its throb,
throb, to which we had all grown so accustomed in the last few days.
"He's got the child!" exclaimed Sally. "See, he's hauling the little
creature on to his back with one hand, and swimming with the other.
Glorious fellow!"
Yes, there were the two heads bobbing like black corks in the tossing
waves, close together. I pictured so vividly what my sensations would
be, if I were down there, a mere speck in that vast expanse of blue,
that I almost tasted salt water in my mouth, and felt the choking
tingle of it in my lungs.
Then, suddenly the ship's heart ceased to beat; and the unaccustomed
stillness was as startling as an unexpected noise. A boat shot down
from the davits, with several sailors on board; a few seconds later
they were rowing away towards those two bobbing black corks, and I
loved them as they bent to their oars.
I can't remember breathing once, or even winking, until I saw the child
being lifted into the boat, and the man climbing in after. What a shout
went up from the ship! Sally clapped her pretty, dimpled hands, but I
only let my breath go at last, in a great sigh.
There was such a crush that I couldn't see them when they came on
board, but there was more shouting and hurrahing, and men slapped each
other on the shoulder and laughed.
Throb, throb went the machinery again, and there was no sign that
anything out of the monotonous round had happened, except in the
excited way that people talked. Several men we knew paid a visit to the
steerage, and came back with stories which flew about from group to
group in the first-class cabin, and no doubt the second too.
It seemed that the little boy who had fallen into the sea was the only
son of his mother, a widow. They were Swedes, and the woman, who is on
her way to the States to try and find a place as a servant, was quite
prostrated with the agonising suspense she had suffered. As for the
little boy himself, he was not seriously the worse for his experience.
The doctor was with him, and said that he would be as well as ever in a
few hours. A subscription for the mother and child had already been
started among the first-class passengers, and would probably be made up
to quite a good sum.
"But what is going to be done for the one who saved the little boy's
life?" I asked the man who was telling me the news, a Mr. Doremus, who
is a cousin of Mrs. Van der Windt's, very full of fun, and good
natured.
"A nice little pedestal, labelled 'Our Hero,' will be built out of the
ladies' admiration, and given to him to pose on," said Mr. Doremus.
"However, I must say for the gentleman,--though I've only seen him
dripping wet, and shaking himself like a big dog,--he didn't give me
the impression of being the sort of chap to say 'thank you' for the
perch."
"Of course he isn't!" said I. "But I do think it's a shame if he's left
out when subscriptions are going round. Of course he must be poor, or
he wouldn't be travelling in the steerage. Something ought to be done
to show him that the passengers admire his bravery--not anything
_fulsome_, but something _nice_."
"I guess you don't know the American disposition yet, as well as you
will after you've wrestled with it on its native heath for a few
months," remarked Mr. Doremus in his quaint way. "That chap down in the
steerage _is_ an American, whatever else he may be, or I'll eat my best
hat; and I wouldn't for five cents be in the deputation to present him
with the something 'not fulsome but nice' on a little silver salver. I
should expect him to give me the frosty mitt."
This expression struck me as being so funny that I burst out laughing,
though I had to stop and think for a second before I could quite see
what Mr. Doremus really meant; but I wouldn't forget my point in a
laugh.
"Perhaps it wouldn't do to offer money," I went on. "Suppose we got up
a subscription to buy him a second-class passage for the rest of the
way. That would show appreciation, wouldn't it?"
"It would," replied Mr. Doremus, gravely, "and if you'll start the
subscription, Lady Betty, it'll go like wildfire."
"Very well, then, I will," said I. "Though I'd rather someone else did
it."
"It wouldn't be so popular from any other quarter. I'll help you. We'll
go floating around together and pass the plate; and if you like, I'll
do the talking."
I agreed to this, and if I'd thought about it at all, I should have
supposed that Mrs. Ess Kay would be as pleased as Punch with such an
arrangement, because Mr. Doremus, as a relative of Mrs. Van der
Windt's, is the only man on board to whom she makes herself agreeable.
It appears that he has started several fashions in New York, the most
important being to drive in some park they have there, without a hat.
But probably if the truth were known, he lost it, like the fox that
tried to make his friends chop off their tails.
Mrs. Ess Kay had gone to her stateroom soon after lunch, as the motion
of the ship had given her a headache, and I didn't happen to be near
Sally Woodburn; so I said "yes" to Mr. Doremus on the impulse of the
moment, without stopping to think whether I ought to ask permission
first.
We had great fun going about, for Mr. Doremus was so witty and said
such amusing things to the people he begged of, that I could hardly
speak for laughing, and everyone else laughed too. I wished that he
wouldn't put me forward always, and say it was my idea, and I had
started the subscription; but he argued that I must sacrifice myself
for the success of the Charity, just as I would at home, if I had to
work off damaged pincushions or day before yesterday's violets at a
bazaar. Of course, not being out, I've never sold anything at bazaars,
but Victoria is continually doing it in the Season, and she makes quite
a virtue of forcing perfect strangers to "stand and deliver," as she
calls it. This seemed much the same sort of thing to me, and so I felt
nice and virtuous, too, as Vic does when she comes home with a new
frock torn and stepped on, and lies in bed late next day, with Thompson
to brush her hair, and me to read to her.
People were very kind, and though they laughed a great deal, they gave
so much that before we'd been half the rounds, Mr. Doremus said we had
more than enough for our friend. He wanted to know if I would like to
"hit the nail on the head" and settle matters at once, by arranging
with the purser for a second-class cabin to be put at the hero's
disposal. I wanted him to do that part alone, but he pretended to be
shy, and said he had grown to depend so entirely on my co-operation,
that he felt unequal to undertaking any responsibility without it. He
told the same story to the purser that he had told others, about my
being the one to start the subscription, and he wanted me to sign a
kind of letter which he wrote, to the effect that the passengers had
chosen this way of testifying their appreciation of a gallant deed, and
so on; but I wouldn't, and he stopped teasing at last, when he saw that
I was going to be vexed.