brilliant mocker, the professed skeptic of all tenderness apart from the
metaphysics of the sex question, had developed into the best of
hard-luck friends; and their agreement to travel together after
Clandonald was free and had left the army proved more than a success.
Now they were drifting homeward again, Mariol to his boulevards and the
fond congenial life of Paris, Clandonald--to what? Mariol, with his keen
insight and ready sympathy, saw that his friend was returning to
England, restless, unsatisfied, out of tune with his future
surroundings; well in body and healthy in his mind, indeed, but in no
humor to pick up his life from where his late partner had cast it, like
a jewel, into wayside dirt.
Mariol had hoped much from their visit to America, where they had found
themselves, during the latter part of the season at Newport, subjected
to the overpowering hospitality of the leaders of the great world. But
although Clandonald's antecedents were as well known and familiarly
discussed there, as in England and on the Continent, and there had been
displayed no disposition on the part of society to visit his evil
fortune upon him, the young man passed but abstractedly through the
ordeal of charms and graces, defiled before his gaze, during the hours
when the world that entertains is in evidence. Mariol sometimes
wondered whether his friend would not have been more easily consoled in
an atmosphere less surcharged with the art of pleasing.
The moment he had laid eyes upon Miss Carstairs, whose patronymic he was
yet to learn, it had flashed upon the Frenchman's active brain that here
was the solution of his perplexities. That the girl met so thoroughly
his own exacting taste in externals, seemed to him a convincing proof
she would be the ideal angel to step down into Clandonald's troubled
pool and make it clear. Her looks, age, good breeding, reserve of
bearing, and evident fortune, added to the fact that she, too, had in
her eyes the shadow of past sorrow, left the kind fictionist no doubt of
his own perspicacity in selection. He had addicted himself to the task
of making friends with her, with a promptitude facilitated by his secret
hopes, and Clandonald's indifference proved the more provoking in that
it bore every aspect of probable enduringness.
Mariol fell asleep, that memorable first night at sea, congratulating
himself that his cares in connection with matters of sentiment were so
purely perfunctory, and that whatever the issue out of Clandonald's
impassivity, no personal interest in any one of the disturbing sex could
ever afford his mentor other than the emotion of a scientist who skewers
a new butterfly for his microscope.
*CHAPTER III*
There was to be no complexity attending the position taken by Miss
Pamela Winstanley, commonly called Posey, in the consideration of her
fellow-passengers of the "Baltic." From the first day out, as has been
said, every one aboard became a prey to the absorbing interest created
by her daily movements, sayings and doings. Beyond the fact that she
was travelling with her father, a Mr. Herbert Winstanley, sometime of
the Army of the Confederate States, presumably a person of very moderate
social place and fortunes, the antecedents of the radiant young beauty
were unknown, and she was accepted upon her face value alone. It was
indisputable that, whenever she appeared conversation centered upon her
to the exclusion of more serious topics. And, in return, Miss
Winstanley lavished her effervescing good graces with impartiality upon
all admirers in attendance. The honors of her smiles and pretty sayings
were shared alike by Lord Clandonald and any minor individual of the
impressible sex, who might chance to be on hand. Jolly old Lord Channel
Fleet, resembling Santa Claus with his roseate face and white fringe of
a beard, found himself vying for her favors with a succession of
American college youths in sweaters, one of whom, famed in university
circles as a thrower of the hammer, stood about in attitudes expressive
of rank jealousy, whenever his sportive lordship was at her side. Lady
Channel Fleet, indeed, was known to be nervous lest the threatening
young man should do something dreadful to her liege.
Miss Bleecker, Mrs. Vereker, and sundry mothers of unentertaining
daughters who struggled into their deck-chairs without assistance and
walked with each other the diurnal mile, looking as if nothing would
induce them to descend to the companionship of the supporting sex,
formed a number of ingenious theories to account for the fair Pamela.
She was a milliner's forewoman, going out to secure fashions for
Alison's Cross Roads. She was a dashing divorcee, who had resumed her
maiden name. She had been a barmaid in California, an artist's model in
New York, an assistant washerwoman in the Klondyke, had tried on cloaks
in a leading haberdashery of Chicago--in all of which capacities there
was somebody aboard who had known somebody else who had actually seen
her! But of suppositions concerning the charmer, the most popular was
that she had sung on the local stage somewhere in the South, and was now
going abroad to study for comic opera. For in addition to other devices
for the bewilderment of mere man, Miss Winstanley was found to possess a
fascinating gift of rendering little Creole chansonettes that conjured
up the warm velvet-like touch of Southern air, the region of palm and
pine and mocking-birds, of orange flowers and Cherokee roses, and the
love spells lingering around it. Then she could croon "Mammy" songs, of
a negress hushing her nursling, in a way to bring tears to the eyes of
most hardened listeners. And between the songs and croonings she would
describe scenes, and impersonate actors, with a natural fire and pathos
that are rarely taught or teachable. But of this accomplishment she was
more chary than the rest, and there were those heard to declare that, on
one occasion on deck, she had sung tears into her own eyes, and abruptly
stopped, declaring she did not care to do it before more than one or
two. The incident being repeated to Miss Bleecker, that inveterate lady
declared it to be but a clever bit of acting to whet expectation of
future appearances behind the footlights.
Amid the successes of his daughter's meteoric rise, little Mr.
Winstanley prowled about the ship, a solitary and somewhat pathetic
figure in his evident belief that self-effacement was the first duty of
the parent of such a Phoenix among maidens. Following his abortive
reopening of acquaintance with Miss Carstairs, he withdrew into his
shell and spoke no more to her. Helen reproached herself that she had
not been able to conceal from him the repulsion at first inspired in her
by her rival in John Glynn's favor. Old Winstanley's mild twinkle of
the eye, the smile playing around his thin lips, gave no hint, however,
that his retiring attitude was inspired by offence. He seemed to live
apart in a world of his own thoughts and memories, from which even his
Posey's triumphs could not extract him for long.
And Posey, Miss Bleecker to the contrary (who from her end of the table
consistently glared down the intruder's right to be), continued to reign
in her revolving chair, as the established queen of every meal. Her
quips and cranks of fan, her lawless sallies at the expense of those
around her, had effectually banished restraint and brought the diverse
elements of their party together; even Helen parting with her formality
to join in the talk, when convinced by observation that Miss Winstanley
knew nothing whatever of her prior acquaintance with John Glynn.
From the beginning, the Honorable Bobby Vane, Lord Kennington's
scapegrace boy, had fallen head over ears in love with Posey, and was
ready to forfeit his not very brilliant prospects in life to marry her,
no matter in what capacity she had previously appeared. Posey laughed
at and with the lad, enjoying his off-hand gayety and mischief, and
there it began and ended. The Russian savant, under the influence of
Miss Winstanley's presence, forgot to grumble about draughts and sauces,
and smoothed his grim-visaged front into affability, answering her in
English as choice as M. de Mariol's French. The old German count,
proving to be the most kindly and merry of comrades, developed a faculty
for telling uproariously funny stories, of which the effect was impaired
only by such a strange mispronunciation of the English tongue that his
auditors were kept supernaturally grave in the effort not to smile at
him, and therefore did not smile at all.
A volume of Mariol's clever (and happily innocuous) short stories having
been produced by somebody and put into circulation on the ship, Miss
Winstanley had familiarized herself with them, and was engaged at odd
moments in translating the little _chef d'oeuvres_ of style, with Bobby
Vane, in whose imagination a book of any kind, save a betting book,
loomed larger than an elephant.
Mariol, to whom direct address from casual people upon the subject of
his writings was an affliction, had been rather dreading the young
lady's comments, and was relieved when she disposed of him thus easily:
"I think they're just lovely, Mr. Mariol, and am trying to make Mr. Vane
agree with me, but he declares they're too jolly dismal and give him the
awful blues. After this, when people say they envy me being at table
with you, I can truly tell them you don't talk the least bit like your
books."
"Mrs. Kipling told me once," said Clandonald, following a laugh at
Mariol's expense, "that when a gushing American girl asked how she could
endure the brilliancy of a certain chat between her husband and Cecil
Rhodes on the Kiplings' veranda in South Africa, she had been puzzled
what to answer, because, as a matter of fact, each of these gentlemen
had been trying to talk more delightful drivel than the other. What
good luck for the rest of us, that great minds do unbend in the intimacy
of private discourse!"
"If one doesn't talk in brief paragraphs, like those columns printed in
American newspapers for busy men to read in elevated trains, one isn't
listened to, I find," said the author, ruefully.
"In most countries, nowadays," observed Prince Zourikoff, looking
anxiously to see whether the portion of cold braised beef left upon the
platter was enough for his liberal appetite, "the fine arts of
conversation and correspondence have both been driven like chaff before
the wind of modern restlessness. Nobody converses, few read, friendly
communication is achieved by wire or telephone. And as to introducing a
serious topic into society--perish the thought! One would be voted a
superannuated nuisance."
"I have always thought it the best compliment a man can pay a woman,"
said Miss Carstairs, blushing a little, "when he talks to her, in
earnest, about what dominates his thoughts."
Mariol flashed an appreciative glance at her. Clandonald cried out:
"Heaven defend your sex, my dear lady, if they had to sit still and
listen to most men's governing thoughts. And, on the whole, there is
nothing so wearing as a person with ideas that have never been applied.
To-day, we must think and act, and accomplish or fail, before we talk.
And as far as talk goes, it's everybody's plain duty to be amusing and
not long."
"To come down before the footlights, and do one's turn, and then drop
back again," interpolated Miss Bleecker, with a glance at the beauty,
who was helping Bobby Vane to a baked potato. "You are quite right,
Lord Clandonald. It is perfect audacity for any one person, whether
clever or insignificant, to attempt to monopolize attention. Everybody
else is invariably bored by it, where they are not laughing in their
sleeves."
"Have you seen many persons laughing in their sleeves, Miss Bleecker?"
asked Posey Winstanley, innocently. "Did they do it when you were
young? I always wondered how. Mr. Vane, please stop eating long
enough, to let's try laughing in our sleeves at Miss Bleecker. I reckon
she'll tell us if it's the real thing."
"There are places, then, where they do say 'I reckon,'" pursued Miss
Bleecker, impassively. "You mentioned, Lord Clandonald, how much you
were disappointed not to hear more provincialisms of speech in America.
I should think Miss Winstanley could give you all you care to collect."
"Did you ever hear, Miss Winstanley," put in Mariol quickly, "the pretty
speech made by King William IV about a charming country-woman of yours,
whom some one asked, 'Pray, do you come from that part of America where
they guess and where they calculate?' 'Lady Wellesley comes from where
they fascinate,' said the gallant monarch."
Bobby Vane clapped his hands approvingly.
"That's rippin', ain't it, Mr. Mariol! My goodness me, wish I weren't
such a duffer at writing things down an' spellin' or I'd make a note of
it. What?"
"Come to school at Alison's Cross Roads, Alabama, and we'll teach you
how," said Posey.
"Helen, you will find me on the boat-deck by Mrs. Vereker," said Miss
Bleecker, majestically arising. "I have had quite enough of this. And
I consider it my mission to spend as much time as I can give to poor
Mrs. Vereker, prostrated by care and anxiety as she has been, and her
husband never allowed to come near her on the voyage."
A light sparkled in the wide-open blue eyes of the ship's charmer, and a
smile hovered around her pretty mouth. She was well aware that about
the second day out, the critical and finical Mr. Vereker had joined in
the universal procession toward her shrine. She had avoided an
introduction as long as possible, compelling her ancient admirer to
perform wonders of intrigue and diplomacy, before he was admitted to the
privilege of her acquaintance. Since then, he had persecuted her for
walks on deck, secured for her white violets, at vast expense, from some
one who was taking them out in the ship's ice-box for sale in London;
had sent to her table daily tokens of regard, from pats of choice
butter, bunches of black Hamburg grapes, and broiled birds, to Southern
"pin-money" pickles. Not content with these tangible evidences, Mr.
Vereker had promised her a dog, and invited her to motor with them
through Touraine. The poor man, who had, in Miss Bleecker's parlance,
"no stomach to speak of," was expecting the return of one of his
periodical attacks, when he would be forced to go upon milk and Educator
biscuits, too enfeebled to walk the deck and flirt, and wished to make
the most of his well moments; but, so far, Miss Winstanley had been
constantly engaged with others, and could not yield him the tete-a-tete
desired.
Miss Bleecker, enlisted under the standard of a complaining wife, was
gratified to leave the party, having hurled the final shaft. Mariol
liked the self-control with which Posey turned immediately to other
topics, no less than he appreciated the effort Helen Carstairs made to
atone for her companion's venom by remaining awhile in conversation that
included the girl attacked. The Frenchman, who noted most things passing
near him, had been making up his mind that some strong personal reason
existed to keep Miss Carstairs in a state of mental self-defence against
the attractions of Miss Winstanley. A judgment so clear and cool and
fair as Helen's in ordinary matters, he had rarely seen, and he believed
her capable of more than the allotted amount of feminine generosity
toward those of her own sex. As far as he had been able to gather, she
had never before seen or heard of this mysterious young person who had
made their voyage so gay. What could the reason be?
It had not escaped him that the Southern girl, taking heed of Helen's
low-pitched voice, of her quiet garb and reserved manner among
strangers, had profited by them to tone down some of her own
extravagances. Already, Miss Winstanley's hair was brushed simply back
in a glorious golden sweep, allowing its natural waves to reveal
themselves untortured. Already, the obnoxious blue dress with its lace
transparencies, the redundant jewelry had gone into retirement, the
young girl appearing at dinner in white blouses as simple as Helen's
own. Better than all, she no longer challenged people within earshot
with her sentiments and opinions.
From time to time, Mariol had detected passing from her to Helen the
glances of homage a very unsophisticated girl bestows upon one she has
elected to make her heroine. And, despite this artless worship, Miss
Carstairs did not relent in her cool demeanor. She was civil always,
considerate often, but never yielding in keeping Miss Winstanley at a
distance. The men at their table were unanimously beginning to feel
that a girl may win easily in the chief events of such a contest, and
yet be badly worsted in the end.
The only one among them who seemed to have preserved indifference on the
subject of Posey's wrongs, was the quiet little man in the
mustard-colored tweeds, with the cowboy hat of sunburnt felt, who
accompanied the beauty to her meals, but was rarely seen with her
elsewhere.
One afternoon, however, she broke away from her cordon of admirers, and
finding the old fellow walking alone, linked her arm in his, adjusting
her pace to his.
"Why, little girl, what's come to you, that the beaux have left you no
better company than mine?" he said, with the jocular homage of his
habitual manner to her.
"There isn't much better company than yours, dad, and I'm beginning to
find it out," she answered, caressingly.
[Illustration: "There isn't much better company than yours, dad."]
"Well, well, a compliment from the belle o' the ship! Reckon when I get
to London I'll have to be buying myself a new suit, and a dozen o'
boiled shirts, though, come to think of it, seems to me I'm no great way
behind that Lord Channel Fleet o' yours in the matter of clothes and
footwear--regular beetle-crushers, those shoes of his, and his hat an
even match for mine."
"He's rather an old dear, anyhow," said Posey; "but I've got another
ancient on the string that's too foolish to talk about. That Mr.
Vereker--he's dyed and made-up, and always fussing about his digestion.
He has a young doctor travelling with him to give him hypodermics for
his nerves, and they're going to some queer place where he'll have to
walk barefoot on wet stones, and diet, with a lot of grand dukes and
things that he just loves to talk about. Aren't they funny though,
these old society men? Imagine you prancing around after young girls!"
"I can't," said her father, simply. "There isn't a woman living, old or
young, that could take my fancy away from the girl I won in Baltimo,
after the wah. She's my love, the same now as then. You're pretty
good-looking, Posey, so people seem to think. But your mother. Lord!
She was a beauty, and as soft and gentle as an evenin' breeze."
"I sometimes wish I had her now, daddy. Since I've been eighteen, and
everybody's so good to me, I mean. There are such lots of little things
a mother could tell me. And to think I was the only child she kept--the
very last of your family--and she couldn't have stayed with me! Ah!
well, don't mind me, dad, I'm happy enough with you."
"You certainly don't often pull a long face, dearie. If there's
anything troubling you, out with it, and let's see if I can't help."
"It's rather a big little secret, daddy. Maybe I oughtn't have kept it
so long, but I was ashamed to tell, I reckon. You see nothing like this
ever happened to me before."
The old man's faded eyes kindled with sudden fire. He halted her
suddenly, facing seaward, and together they leaned over the taffrail.
"Posey, it hasn't got anything to do with John Glynn, has it?" he asked
with a tremulous eagerness of joy.
"Yes, daddy."
"He spoke to you before we sailed?"
"Just before. That last evening, at the hotel, when you went off to
smoke with the nice old gentleman you fought beside at Seven Pines, and
left us sitting in the corridor looking at the people. He said
everything that was nice about you, first; how you had been his father's
dearest friend, and had helped him through college, and started him in
New York, and he loved you dearly, and never could repay the debt. Then
he recalled how he and I had known each other as boy and girl, though he
always thought of me as nothing but a little kid, until he saw me last
year at home, and just now, in New York. He told me how hard he was
working, with scarcely a minute to call his own, and what a tough
struggle it would be to get up top, but that he meant to do it, if he
lived----"
"And he will--he will!" interrupted Mr. Winstanley, in accents of strong
pride. "He didn't tell you, I'll bet, that he never took up my offer to
stake him with funds for his expenses in New York, till he got square
upon his feet, and that he never drew a blessed cent of it?"
"He said you'd been more than good, but he wouldn't impose on you. You
see, daddy, John knows that all these years you've had as much as you
could do to keep us going, and have me educated. I suppose he was as
surprised as I, when he found you were taking me abroad in style--you
extravagant old thing, you!"
"Of course. Of course," murmured Mr. Winstanley, acquiescently. "It
does seem extravagant, doesn't it? But we'll manage to make two ends
meet, I reckon, if we pinch, afterwards, to make up for it. Go on,
Posey, go on. Tell me the rest about you and John. It is music to my
ears."
"I thought so, daddy," the girl said, with a tender sigh. "And though I
wasn't quite ready to do what he asked me, I couldn't say no. So when
he said you and his father had always wanted us two to be married, some
day, and would I consider myself engaged to him, until he was ready to
give me a home in New York, I just asked him to wait till the next day,
and I would telephone my answer before the steamer sailed. And I did.
That's what I was doing when you called to me that the carriage was
waiting to drive us to the pier. I was shut up in the telephone booth
at the hotel saying 'yes' to John."
"And you never gave the poor lad a chance to see you face to face
again?" exclaimed her father, every wrinkle of his face luminous with
satisfaction at the news.
"Ye-es," said Posey, "I saw him for a minute over the rail of the
steamer. He just rushed down from his office the minute he could get
off. I'd told him I'd write him all the usual things by the pilot-boat,
and from Queenstown; and he'd laughed and said he'd have to be satisfied
with that! You mustn't expect John and me to be silly, father, for we
aren't a bit, either of us. I ought to tell you that he's been in love
with another girl, and it didn't turn out well, and he put her out of
his thoughts forever."
"So that was what ailed the lad last Spring when I went North on that
business of the mine? I might have guessed it, poor boy, he was blue as
indigo. Well, it was handsome of him to tell you, daughter, and, my
word for it, your marriage will be just as happy as if he hadn't taken
that other little notion before he saw that you were the real girl for
him. It'll all be blown away like the steamer smoke yonder, and he'll
wonder at himself for ever thinking he could have put up with the idea
of any wife but you. For that's a man's way, my dear, since the world
began."
"Was it your way, daddy?" asked Posey archly.
"My child, I was ready to put myself before the mouth of the first
cannon I met up with when I went into service, and be blown to atoms,
through calf-love for a young lady of our neighborhood. She jilted me
to marry a widower, a Baptist preacher by the name of Simkins; no, it
was Lawson, I think--but never mind. She had nine children when I saw
her next, and we didn't recognize each other. When we did, she talked
to me about Simpkins'es (it really was Simkins) asthma, without a break
for fifteen solid minutes, and I got away, thanking the Lord it wasn't
my asthma, and my fat wife, and my nine children, howling and doing
stunts all over the house--yet I lived to be happier than any king with
the real angel of my life! But, dearie, it isn't the time to be talking
of anything but you and John Glynn, and the joy you've given me in
promising to marry each other some day. He is the finest young man I
know, and the one of all in the world I'd choose to share what--there,
you do the talking, I can't trust myself."