Mariol, the poor girl is being pecked by all these women, until it
hurts. You have some friendship, perhaps some influence, with Miss
Carstairs. Persuade her to be generous, and take the outsider in. It
will cost her nothing, and I'm hanged if I understand why she's been
such an icicle, as it is."
"Did Miss Winstanley invite your intercession?" asked Mariol, dodging
back from contact with an inclined plane of mutton broth, in a tilting
china plate marked with the White Star's emblem, borne aloft by a deeply
apologetic steward.
"No. Absolutely no. She'd fight to the last ditch before she'd give in
to them. But I have an ulterior motive. I want to ask the two young
women with my dear old aunt, Lady Campstown, to play propriety, to come
down with you to Beaumanoir some day next week, and if they hardly
speak----"
"Under these circumstances, I will engage to attempt the impossible,
though whether I achieve it is quite another story. I, too, have been
at a loss to fathom Miss Carstairs' apparent intention to ignore our
pretty table-mate. I had fancied her too sure of her own position to
care about a mere difference in social status. I have found her
perfectly amiable. But if, by any chance, the discussion of Miss
Winstanley comes up, there is an immediate stiffening of the muscles of
the neck and chin, the clear eyes become veiled, and she turns the
subject. I could almost fancy, but that they never met before, there
was some personal animus between them."
"Tell her the girl is her devoted lover from afar, makes her a model in
all things, and that we owe the agreeable modifications of the fair
Posey's dress and manner exclusively to Miss Carstairs' example."
"That is a happy suggestion, and may accomplish good results. But did
you ever know a man's eulogy of a woman effect anything with her own
sex? It is generally successful only in confirming the worst
predispositions, and in precipitating animosity where latent antipathy
had sufficed. Still, who could resist the exquisite flattery of such
imitation as our Posey's of Miss Carstairs? Fix your day for Beaumanoir,
my dear chap. I consider our cause gained in advance."
"Do you know, Mariol," said Clandonald as the two men sat down at table,
where the ladies had not yet arrived, "I have sometimes fancied that you
yourself are getting rather under the spell of the young lady you have
engaged to placate in Miss Winstanley's behalf."
"Do you know, Clan, that I never before suspected you of the imaginative
gift? Nothing but Jonah's gourd--was it Jonah, and was it a gourd?--that
grew up and withered in a night, could have had so little time allotted
to its natural development, as a fancy by me for Miss Carstairs."
"That is no argument. I have read of love affairs beginning at the
Statue of Liberty and culminating before the Gulf Stream was crossed.
There is really no better medium than mid-Atlantic air for the growth of
the tender passion. The leisure of a good voyage is like the forty
years of Europe compared with the cycle of Cathay."
"It seems to me that you are exculpatory."
"I wish to heaven I might be!" exclaimed Clandonald, smothering his very
genuine regret with a forkful of the roast beef of old England pastured
upon Western plains.
The talk that morning with Posey Winstanley had awakened in him certain
emotions of a simple elementary sort that, in spite of him, still
twanged upon his heart-strings, pleasingly. He had, however, been by no
means prepared for that upward glance of her childlike orbs when he had
offered her his sympathy. While the normal vanity of the male creature
thrilled in quickened interest in response to it, his judgment, his
sense of responsibility, nay, of honor, called upon him loudly to let
the thing go no further. A patent and audacious coquette on the
surface, she was at heart a child who had as yet tasted no reality of
sentiment for one of the dominant sex, and to whom such reality would
inevitably come with extraordinary force.
The whimsicality of her having selected him--a battered plaything of the
Fates, who did not want her, who could not indulge in her--for the
object of a dawning first passion, struck him hard. He resolved to keep
out of her way, and considered how he could have his meals elsewhere, or
take to his bed for the remainder of the voyage. The projected luncheon
at Beaumanoir should be carried out, and that done, he would have
acquitted himself, _en galant homme_, of all that could be reasonably
expected of a travelling Briton toward visiting Americans who had
contributed to cheer his voyage across the Atlantic.
To begin the new order of things, he let himself be absorbed in
conversation by Miss Bleecker, his pet aversion, who leaning over the
table, her ample bosom begarlanded with chains and cords, each one
sustaining some necessary implement for the aid of vision, far or near,
and all of them entangled, was in her best spirits. She, Lady Channel
Fleet, and Mrs. Vereker, had been in their deck chairs since broth and
biscuits to the present moment, discussing the American women who had
married into the British nobility. The three ancient heads cowled in
veils and furry hoods--for the air off the Banks had had in it a tang of
ice--had bobbed together during this time with a vivacity of movement
suggesting the cinematograph.
Mrs. Vereker's sciatic leg, which it was the mission of her good-looking
footman to keep enwrapped with rugs, when he could forego flirting with
the ladies' maids, had been frequently exposed to the biting wind, and
yet she did not notice it. Lady Channel Fleet, who, with her husband
and a maid, had been doing America economically in somebody's private
car, at somebody's expense, wisely kept quiet; since, if she shivered,
there was no James to wrap her up. Miss Bleecker, more serene, indeed,
than Buddha, in her position between a British matron of title and one
of New York's leaders, did not feel the cold. Except in a parterre box
at the opera (with the best people), she had no greater idea of
happiness than such surroundings; with a long, uninterrupted morning in
which to rehash old stories and acquire new ones concerning the ladies
under discussion, whom she secretly considered the elect of earth.
Lady Channel Fleet, conscious of having had more honors paid to her in
America than in the whole course of her undistinguished life at home,
was proportionately inclined to be critical of Americans, now she had
come away. Her strictures upon their extravagance in living, which she
had enjoyed to the top of her bent, the largeness of their houses and
the smallness of their grounds, their ridiculous way of running after
strangers, and the extraordinary interchange of matrimonial partners
among people one knew and visited, were interspersed with various bits
of gossip she had been able to pick up in England concerning American
peeresses who had not received her at their houses and were, indeed,
unconscious of her existence.
It had been rather a bitter pill for Mrs. Vereker, who was hand-in-glove
with all these fine people both in England and New York, to have to
listen politely to Lady Channel Fleet. But, then, Mrs. Vereker had
already stood so much in the line of incivility from the British dames
of high place upon whom she had lavished courtesy during their sojourn
in the land of the free, that she was a little hardened. She knew that
on arrival out, she would go from Claridge's to stop at country houses
where Lady Channel Fleet's star would never even faintly rise. She was
secure in being able to buy herself a good time and the best of
everything wherever she might go, and felt, on the whole, content. Miss
Bleecker, on the contrary, who had no such solid foundations as her
friend, felt in listening to Lady Channel Fleet as acutely pained as if
she were reading one of Mr. Benson's or Mr. Hichens' novels, wherein
modern Americans of good society are made to say "Popper" and "real
nice." She could hardly imagine how her nation could arise to ignoring
these dreadful accusations.
But when Lady Channel Fleet had incidentally let fall that she always
presumed Miss Bleecker, from her speech and manner, to be an
Englishwoman born, Miss Bleecker had forgiven all. She redoubled her
powers of entertainingness, brought out a few newer, racier anecdotes of
persons known to all of them, and the luncheon bugle had caught the
gossips unawares, making them feel the morning quite too short.
"I suppose we shall see you at Mr. Vereker's little supper this evening,
Lord Clandonald?" said the chaperon, suavely. "One knows what to expect
in the way of private dainties, when Mr. Vereker entertains--game,
wines, pates, caviare put up for him on the Volga, flowers, grapes and
melons from his own glass houses, and such turtle soup as only the
Vereker _chef_ can send aboard. And to think the poor man has to sit at
the head of the table, drinking milk and swallowing little tablets out
of his waistcoat pocket, looking gray as a ghost, and thin as a rail,
not able to touch a thing of all his delicious spread!"
"Mr. Vereker has been so good as to include me," answered Clandonald.
"I believe most of those at our table are expected," the lady went on,
in a hardly lowered voice, "with, of course, one or two exceptions.
When Mr. Vereker crosses alone they say his parties are apt to be a
little mixed. But with his wife aboard--she is so thoroughly exclusive,
one need never fear."
What might have been omitted from the words, was accentuated by a manner
of contempt whose objects there was no mistaking. Mr. Winstanley as
usual appeared not to be listening to the passing chat; but his daughter
lost not a syllable or look; Helen Carstairs, also, fully appreciated
the situation. While Posey, with rare self-control, kept her own counsel
and remained silent, Miss Carstairs, flushing faintly, spoke so that all
present could hear her.
"I'm afraid I'm one of those who fail to appreciate the honor of Mr.
Vereker's invitations, ashore or afloat. Who was it who said to be left
out by him was a greater compliment than to be placed at his right
hand?"
"Helen, I'm surprised to hear you talk such nonsense," began her
chaperon briskly, but was interrupted by Posey Winstanley, who with a
grateful glance at Helen, spoke in tones as quiet and measured as her
own.
"Then I am certainly past getting the benefit of Miss Carstairs' hint,
Miss Bleecker, since Mr. Vereker asked me first, before seeing if he
could get the others; and I was rash enough to accept."
*CHAPTER V*
MR. Vereker's little supper proved all that Miss Bleecker had claimed
for it in the matter of exotic luxury. American beauty roses, as fresh
as if they had bloomed that morning, decked the centre of the board, and
a corsage bouquet of royal purple violets lay beside each lady's plate.
The unpleasantly pallid host, with skin drawn like parchment over his
lean jaws, his hair and mustache unnaturally black, sat at one end, and
(to the dismay of Miss Bleecker, who had been made to fit in at the
side) Miss Posey Winstanley upon his left, opposite my Lady Channel
Fleet in a rumpled cotton blouse, still wearing the turquoise earrings,
with the addition of a turquoise chain to hold her eyeglasses.
Posey, in severely plain white voile, with a picture hat and white
feathers framing the waves of her splendid hair, thanked her stars that
she had had Helen Carstairs' example in dress long enough to profit by
it for this occasion. She saw in half a glance that her frock, the
result of the best skill of the dressmaker at Alison's Cross Roads, who
called her by name in fitting her, could not vie with the dove-colored
confection with its all-over embroideries that sat so easily upon
Helen's erect form. But she knew that it was unobtrusive, and the
little slip of mirror above her washing-stand had told she was at her
best.
It had been an ordeal that of dressing while her cross room-mate, who
made a virtue of what she called "retiring" early, continued at
intervals to extend her head like a turtle's from its shell, and inquire
whether Miss Winstanley would be very much longer! Posey was fain to go
outside and have the finishing touches put to her toilette by the
stewardess, Mrs. Gasher, the bib of whose white apron covered
sympathetic interest, since she knew about the supper, and that the
ladies to be present were dead set against the beauty of the ship. When
she had stuck the last pin, Mrs. Gasher maternally informed Miss
Winstanley that she looked pretty enough to beat the Jews, and would
find her 'ot water covered with a towel when she came in again to go to
bed; and if she couldn't get undone herself, never to mind ringing up
Mrs. Gasher.
Under this cheerful inspiration, Posey had marched into the saloon to
find the others all in place, an empty chair kept for her at the host's
left.
She had been hoping to be next Clandonald--for no reason but that she
wanted it. Instead, she had but a cold glance from him across the table,
at which she quailed because she thought she read in it displeasure.
And immediately he turned back to his conversation with Prince Zourikoff
about Silver or Trusts, or Labor, or some of those tiresome things, and
looked at her no more. The only consolation for this awful blow was
that Helen, sitting between Mariol and Bobby Vane, had smiled at her
kindly when she came in late.
Miss Bleecker, beside the Graf von Bau, who occupied the seat to the
left of Mrs. Vereker, decided that the world was out of joint. Lord
Channel Fleet, at the right of his hostess, looked tired, and when Miss
Bleecker effusively addressed him upon topics of contemporaneous
interest in London, gave her but scant answers. Graf von Bau, after he
had exhausted civilities with the lady of the feast, had but eyes and
ears for the spot where Posey had already begun to outdo herself in
characteristic nonsense.
"That girl!" said Miss Bleecker, between her teeth, to Mr. Charley
Brownlow, a serious-faced, clean-shaven New York clubman of whom the
utmost his friends and enemies could find to say was that he was "always
everywhere." "It is not enough to defy poor dear Mrs. Vereker, who
flatly said she should not be asked, but to make herself so conspicuous.
See, every man at table, except you----"
"I don't know her, don't you know? Never met her anywhere," interposed
Mr. Brownlow gravely.
"Of course you didn't--as I was saying, every man at table but you, and,
I'm glad to see, Lord Clandonald, can look at nothing else. I suppose
she went too far with Clandonald, and he wants to put her back in her
place. Everybody understands old Vereker's rage for a pretty face,
though I, for one, can never see good looks in a common person. It's
scandalous the way she's going on to-night. Mr. Vereker's trying to
make her take champagne, and she pretending she never drinks it! Poor
Lady Channel Fleet, what a trial to sit opposite her! Now, we shall
have a fresh batch of stories circulated in London about the way
American girls act; and the worst of it is you can never get the English
to see the difference between people of our stamp, and hers. Why, I
don't believe Lord Channel Fleet and Clandonald take in, at this minute,
the enormous distance between my Helen and that impossible young person.
What's that they're laughing at? Something saucy she is saying to Lady
Channel Fleet, I'll wager."
"What do we do for chaperons, at home, Lady Channel Fleet?" Miss
Winstanley was remarking, her head well in the air, and the spirit of
mischief securely seated in her eyes. "Well, we don't need 'em greatly
at Alison's Cross Roads, where I live; but if there's a party at the
other end of town, your best young man generally calls for you in a
hack. And when he brings you home again, about three or four in the
morning, you give him your latch-key to open the front door, and if
you're not tall enough, you get him to turn out the gas in the vestibule
before he goes."
"Good Heavens!" ejaculated Lady Channel Fleet, growing purple.
"Why not, I'd like to know?" exclaimed Posey, sturdily. "We consider it
awfully swell to be taken that way, and the fellows that can't afford a
hack generally bunch together with the girls and all go in the tram; and
it's lots of fun, I tell you. Just bully!"
Mrs. Vereker exchanged glances of mute despair with Miss Bleecker and
Mr. Brownlow. The others laughed frankly, Clandonald, only, remaining
smileless, and Helen Carstairs coloring with a futile desire to arrest
Miss Winstanley's progress in confidences.
As well attempt to stay Niagara! A demon of recklessness had possessed
himself of John Glynn's promised bride, and poor Posey went from bad to
worse, talking continuously, her cheeks flushed to the color of the
American beauties lavished upon the table, her eyes glittering defiance;
while old Vereker, who had desired nothing better, applauded her every
utterance, and urged her to further daring.
"She should stop now," whispered Mariol to Miss Carstairs, who was
looking very grave.
"Oh, indeed I think so," answered Helen earnestly.
"For her own sake, if there is no one else whose interests are to be
guarded."
Helen started perceptibly. No one else whose interests were to be
guarded? What of John Glynn, and where was the friendship Helen had
promised to keep for him in lieu of the love she had withdrawn?
Impulsively, she leaned forward, caught Posey Winstanley's eye, and into
her own beseeching, all-womanly gaze threw an appeal not to be resisted.
Clandonald, who had begun to be sickeningly annoyed by the scene, and as
far as possible avoided looking directly at the heroine of the hour,
happened to note this little episode. Remembering what Posey had told
him of Helen's influence over her imagination, he was touched but not
surprised at the younger girl's response. Posey, blushing hotly,
drooped her eyes, and in an instant, as if with a garment cast aside,
had parted with her aggressive gaiety. During the remainder of the meal
she sat dull and spiritless, and at its close, when she had promised to
sing one song for them, tried to get out of it and leave the party.
There was a general outcry of remonstrance. Bobby Vane, coming around to
lead her to the piano, whispered to her to do her best and silence the
tabby chorus. When she finally yielded, and sat down, expectation ran
high among Mr. Vereker's faction that the girl would give them something
audacious to be remembered.
It was but a "Mammy" chant, she breathed, rather than sang, in a _voix
d'or_ that softened all hearts within hearing; and before they could
applaud it she struck firmer chords, and began Lockhart's Spanish
ballad:
"Rise up, rise up, Xarifa,
And lay your golden cushion down."
The song and its setting were unfamiliar to most of those present.
While it lasted, they forgot the grinding of mighty screws that bore the
ship ever forward, they heard not the wash of ocean coming through the
open ports. They were in ancient days of warlike Spain, and all their
sympathy was for the lovely Moorish lady forsaken by false Abdallah.
Everybody within hearing was drawn irresistibly to listen in ravished
silence. And when for the last time the hapless Xarifa refused to come
to the window and "gaze with all the town" at her recreant lover riding
by in state, the honors of the evening were clearly for Posey
Winstanley. At that moment, all but a few of the audience were prepared
to be led or used by her, as one feels when Calve softens to sing a
folk-song of her native land.
Amid the patter of applause Miss Winstanley abruptly arose from the
piano, and said she was going out to get a breath of air. There were
protestations, but only the host, who looked at her with bleared,
enraptured eyes, ventured to ask her to sing again. Then, Mr. Vereker
finding his proposition for Lillian Russell's latest success unheeded,
allowed the departure of his star, rejecting all offers of
companionship, to be the signal for breaking up the affair.
Everybody scattered, the men to the smoking-room, the ladies to their
cabins. Helen Carstairs, with her maid in attendance, came back almost
immediately, and stood for a moment hesitating in the companion-way of
the deck where she had last seen Posey. Here she encountered
Clandonald, who, like herself, seemed to be at a loss.
"I am undertaking a formidable task," she said. "To look for a missing
person in this ship; but have you chanced to see Miss Winstanley
anywhere?"
She saw that his face was clouded, his calm ruffled.
"I myself have been on the same search," he said, brusquely. "But we
may as well spare our pains. The young lady in question appears to be
at present under charge of Mr. Vereker."
Helen had but time to let her face show the annoyance of her feelings,
when out of the clear obscure of the deck beyond, against a background
of sky "patined with such bright stars" as never Shakespeare saw, came
to them a flying figure. It was Posey, flushed with angry blood, and
after her limped their host of the evening, his spectral face wreathed
in apologetic smiles.
"Oh! please, Miss Carstairs, may I stay with you?" exclaimed the girl
with quivering lips, in her agitation putting herself between Helen and
Clandonald, who involuntarily interposed his stalwart form so that none
else could approach her. "I didn't realize how late it was when I went
out to be by myself in the fresh air."
"Miss Winstanley is just a _leetle_ nervous after her triumphs of
to-night," began Mr. Vereker, who had come up with them--smoothly, but
ill at ease.
"I am not nervous. I never was in my life," cried the girl, stamping
her foot. "It is because--because----"
She ended in a burst of passionate tears.
"Let me go with you to your room," said Helen, gently. "I had wanted to
ask you for a little walk, but it is late now, and the deck people are
for putting us all to bed."
"High-strung little filly, and green; green as grass," observed Mr.
Vereker to Clandonald, as Miss Carstairs disappeared, leading Posey down
the corridor. "If you're up to a little poker in the smoking-room, I
can tell you a thing or two about our bewitching girl from Dixieland
that will amuse you greatly."
"You will excuse me," answered Clandonald, with lightning in his gaze.
Mariol, passing in at the moment, saw Vereker shrivel under it and
disappear. Clandonald gave his friend a clue to the situation.
"If you had followed your impulse and punched the old sinner's head,"
commented Mariol, "it might have been a poor return for his hospitality,
but a mighty relief to you. However, we can safely leave him to the
gods for punishment. He will probably go under to-morrow, with one of
his attacks, because he drank champagne for supper. I understand that a
trained nurse for him makes part of the Verekers' travelling suite. He
will become a horrid elderly infant in her hands. I am glad Miss
Carstairs came to the relief. I hope you noticed that fine movement of
hers to check the exuberance of the younger girl? I had no time to put
your suggestion to enlist her into effect before the thing occurred.
And now----"
"Now, I think we may count upon our day all together at Beaumanoir. But
till then, and after it, Mariol, I mean to keep my distance from Miss
Winstanley."
"The trouble was that you began doing it too suddenly. From the moment
she caught sight of your glum countenance at supper the sparkle went out
of things for her. But, _bon Dieu_, what a gift she has, that untrained
creature! Somebody ought to take charge of her musical education, and
in a few years she would witch the world."
"There is something better for a pure, straightforward being like that
to do than to witch the world behind footlights," said Clandonald
doggedly. "I can't think of it for her."
"My advice to you is to get off at Queenstown," answered Mariol as they
separated for the night.
"You are not sleepy? That's good, for I'm not, either, and I'll just
send away Eulalie, and we'll go into my room and talk."