inside the pretty bower Eulalie's skill had contrived from her young
lady's belongings for the voyage. What a contrast to the half of a dull
inside cabin which Mr. Winstanley, in his simplicity, had accepted for
Posey from the agent of whom he had purchased places; with the spinster
room-mate humped under the bedclothes on the sofa; her clothes and hats
hanging overhead distractedly; their steamer trunks and bags encumbering
the narrow space between hers and Posey's berths!
Here were unimagined comforts, order, nicety, a little brass bed with
flowery curtains, softest pillows and duvets, a bath room opening out,
with porcelain tub; an equipment for the toilet that astounded Posey,
till then content with her little cotton night-gown trimmed with
tatting, her kimono of cheap blue flannel bought ready-made, her one
brush and comb, and tooth-brush, and bottle of Sozodont, her knitted
slippers, and the steamer-pocket of blue denim with the motto "Bon
voyage," presented to her on leaving Alison's Cross Roads by her friend
the dressmaker! But she showed no more surprise than an Indian does on
his first visit to the glories of the White Father at Washington. Truth
to tell, she had already arrived at the stage of development where
things tangible have become of secondary importance to feelings and
emotions. She had passed, that evening, through so many varying phases
of mental experience, that Helen Carstairs' new kindness seemed the
opening of the gate of Heaven.
"Now if you feel like it, and think it will do you good," said Helen,
installing her in a cushioned chair of Madeira wicker-work, and,
herself, perching school-girl fashion on the settee, "you must tell me
what troubled you, though I think I can guess."
"He tried to kiss me, that hateful old mummy that I've done nothing but
make fun of on the voyage," cried the girl, fiery blushes streaming into
her face. "If he hadn't said such fool-words when he did it, I might
have thought he was just like old Grandfather Billings of our town, that
always dodders along in the sunshine and kisses the girls when they stop
to speak to him, thinking they're their own grandmothers. But even
Grandfather Billings has never kissed me. I hate it, and never would
put up with it from a living soul, so when old Vereker tried it on, I
boxed his ears, and boxed to hurt, too, and then I ran away. What
business had he following me out on deck, anyway, when I'd said I wanted
to be by myself? If daddy knew--but he shan't know, he's too good to
trouble, and I reckon I can take care of myself."
She ended bravely, but one glance into Helen's grave, kind face sent her
again into tears.
"Oh! Miss Carstairs, don't mind me. Let me be a little while, and I'll
promise not to bother you again. After you looked at me that time at
supper, I seemed to shrink up into such a poor pretending creature. I
saw in a flash how cheaply I'd been 'showing off.' It was mostly to
make those people that looked down on me sit up on their hind legs,
anyway! I felt common and half-bred beside you, whom I'd been trying so
hard to imitate since we came aboard. I do want to be a lady, your
kind, I do, I do. Not only for my own sake, and my mother's, who was a
real one, but because--if you only knew----"
"I am ready to know," said Helen, after a pause, her voice, in spite of
her, curiously flattened.
"I am engaged to marry a man, to whom it will mean everything that I
shall be, let me say, all you are. And there's a great reason why I
should try to please him in those things. How strange that I should want
to tell you such an intimate secret, out of my very heart! But there is
no other woman I can talk to, and that look you gave me seemed to open
every door within me!"
"I will help you if I can," Helen breathed, rather than spoke. Her
spirit, wrestling with the certainty that crushed it, was yet ready to
rise to generosity. Was it not what she had bid John Glynn do in the
moment of his acutest suffering? Find a younger, fresher, more trustful
life-partner than herself, and put swiftly out of mind their disastrous
venture together that could not end in happiness! What right had she to
be feeling these fierce heart-beats of rebellion against the child's
superior claim upon him, these desperate yearnings to have him back
again?
"I am ashamed to let you know what will make you think even less of me
than you do. When I promised myself to John Glynn--there I've told you
his name, but it doesn't matter--I did so because I thought it would
make my dear daddy, who was in some sort his guardian and his father's
best friend--happier than anything in the world. Also, I was flattered
that he should ask me. Down at Alison's, where John lived as a boy,
they think he has taken the head of his firm into business with him, and
that all New York looks on admiringly. He's about the greatest hero we
have after Lee and Davis. He's a splendid man, Miss Carstairs, perhaps
you _have_ heard of him? I remember now, daddy said Mr. Carstairs had
spoken well of John. When that Lady Channel Fleet had the cheek to say
at supper, she considered the American men, as a rule, inferior to their
women, and decidedly so to Englishmen, I could have flown at her, and
asked her to wait till she'd seen John."
Helen, conscious that something of the same mental protest had
formulated itself in her during the same period of provocation, could
not forbear a smile. Fortunately, Miss Winstanley, being fairly
launched upon her confidence, did not pause for answer or comment.
"You will see, then, that I do honestly mean to be what I ought, to
John--that--I have no other wish or fancy--and yet there is another
influence that's come without my seeking--one that could not bring me
happiness. It frightens me to think of it. I don't know what to do,
where to turn. Think of putting the thing of a day and hour against the
other, the safe one, the true one! Yes, it frightens me. Miss
Carstairs, you are older and wiser than I, tell me what I shall do to
conquer it?"
All the voices in Helen's heart sang in chorus, in answer to this simple
and pathetic appeal. The voice of joy, the voice of temptation were
louder for awhile than the others, but she dared not let them prevail.
She had never been a demonstrative person, and the touching of
strangers, under no matter what stress of sympathy, was an impossibility
to her. She did not, therefore, "lock Posey in a warm embrace" and
"kiss her upon the virgin brow," bidding her be of good cheer, as all
would yet be well between John Glynn and herself. But she told her,
calmly and dispassionately, that it is probable no girl ever grew up to
womanhood to escape some errant fancy for a man whom she afterwards
thanked God she had not been allowed by Destiny or her parents to marry.
She counselled her to indulge in no dreams or reveries or
self-questionings about the matter, but to keep to the pledge she had
made, and give all her energies to the task of making a good man happy.
Posey brightened wonderfully during Miss Carstairs' little lecture. As
she ran off to bed, it was with the joyful step of a freed school-girl
and the feeling that she was not altogether steeped in wickedness.
Half-way down the corridor, she turned, ran back, and ventured to knock
again at Miss Carstairs' door. Her errand was the very feminine one of
asking Helen to be so good as to undo "two wretched hooks" in the region
of her shoulder-blades; a service she knew Mrs. Gasher would never at
that late hour be awake to perform for her. When Miss Carstairs opened
the door, standing in the aperture in some surprise to know what was
wanted, Posey felt sorry and puzzled to see that her new friend's eyes
were filled with tears.
As Miss Winstanley, finally relieved from the apprehension of having to
spend the night in a cuirass of white voile with many little pipings of
satin and a good deal of scratchy net, crept in like a thief at her own
cabin-door, her room-mate roused up and groaned dismally.
"Seems to me I'm to have not a wink of sleep to-night. Just as I'd
settled down for my first nap, there came a stupid steward with a note
for you. I told him to put it in your berth and go out as quick as he
could, and since then I haven't closed my eyes."
"Thank you. I'm sorry you are not resting well," said Posey, still
under the influence of her recent gentle mood. "Is it anything you've
eaten, do you think?"
"Eaten? I never eat at sea," sniffed the sufferer. "It's my nerves, as
usual, and since you've roused me up completely, I'll thank you to mix
me another trional powder, and not to turn up the light. While you're
about it, you may's well step outside and get my rug off the rail, and
put it over my poor feet. Blocks of ice they are, cold feet are
constitutional in our family. Humph! Single fold, not double, I don't
want to smother. I should think your father'd know better than to let a
girl like you go traipsing around a ship alone at this hour of the
night. Perhaps, if you'd heard what I did, since I've been lying here
trying to count sheep and say the ten table, you'd haul in your horns a
bit, and not think yourself such a museum wonder. The people in the
next room were talking about you, and I heard the man say as plain as
anything: 'If I wanted my daughter to keep her good name, I'd not let
her go out on deck at night with that gay old bird, Tom Vereker.' And
the woman answered: 'Some people's heads are so turned with vanity and
fine company, they don't take ordinary care. It's the talk of all the
decks how she's laying herself out to catch that disreputable lord, and
he and his French friend calling her "dead easy sport," in the
smoking-room.'"
"Did any one say that such words had been actually used about me by
either of those gentlemen?" asked Posey, stopping short, her eyes
blazing in the dark.
"How do I know all that's said, lying here a wretched victim of nerves,
and nobody caring if I live or die?"
"I ask you, only, was it stated that either of those gentlemen said
anything approaching to those words of me?"
"For goodness' sake, speak lower, Miss Winstanley, you'll be overheard.
Some people have no consideration for others, especially girls at night,
when people are trying to fall asleep. If there's a race I consider
utterly heartless, it is girls."
"I am not going to let you sleep or rest," went on the avenger, calmly
taking off her hat, "till you answer my question in plain words--yes or
no."
"N-o-o. I don't know that it was actually _said_, but the lady inferred
that Lord Clandonald and his friend couldn't _think_ anything else, if
you continued to give yourself away, as you've been doing."
"Very well! I understand. And, since we are due at Queenstown day
after to-morrow, I shall ask you to oblige me by not addressing to me a
syllable, good, bad or indifferent, so long as I have the misfortune to
remain your room-mate. If we collide with something, and go down, don't
even inquire of me where the life-preservers are. And now, since I want
to read my note, I mean to turn on the electricity and do so
comfortably, and you may wake or sleep, or go on inventing spiteful
fables, whichever you prefer. From this moment, I am done with you."
Certainly, Posey knew how to take care of herself. But there was always
a swift following of regret and penitence when she had let her clever
tongue loose upon an opponent, and while the subdued spinster sobbed
under her bedclothes, the girl rather miserably opened one of the ship's
envelopes, to find, written upon a slip of paper, in an angular and
illegible, but educated, woman's hand these words:
"When next you invite a certain friend of yours to supply you with
frocks and hats, take care that it is not within hearing of one who is
well acquainted with Lord C----'s limited generosity to the reigning
fancy of the hour. Better fix your hopes upon the older and more solvent
of your swains. It will pay well, and be a less dangerous game for
you."
As the insult burned upon the girl's understanding, it seemed to her
that the world must stop revolving then and there. It was her first
experience of the poison of anonymous correspondence, that, in an
instant, ran through her veins, paralyzing her with shame and
humiliation. How could she face daylight and the society of honest
folk, with a stain of such suspicion upon her? What had she brought
upon her honored father, upon her trustful lover, by exposing herself to
such an imputation? Would Helen Carstairs ever speak to her again, if
she knew what had been thought and said of Posey Winstanley?
She turned out the light, and cast herself upon her berth. Now, over
the tumult of her self-flagellations, arose the actual sound of a mighty
wind arising to bear down upon the ship. It had come up suddenly, their
room was upon the weather-side, and, in her already nervous state, the
sounds seemed the shrieking of all the demons chained in hell. While the
spinster, now avenged, snored peacefully through the tumult of elements
outside, Posey lay wide-eyed, trembling, imagining all horrors of the
sea, and praying for the comfort of Mrs. Gasher's friendly voice.
"If we are to be lost," passed through her mind, despairingly,
"everything will be forgotten that has been said of me, and it is better
so." She longed to go to her father, but dared not, considering his
distance from her, and the unpleasant fact that he shared a stateroom
with two other men. The silence of the ship seemed as unnatural as the
failure of increase in its motion. The curtain drawn over their doorway
swayed ever so slightly back and forth, there was no creaking of timbers
or crash of crockery, or rolling of small objects upon the floor. A
glass of water left on the washhand-stand was not disturbed in its
equilibrium. Surely this was strange, weird, unnatural, with such a
tempest raging on the sea!
Now Posey decided that, on the whole, she did not wish to die. Driven
by panic, she arose, still dressed as she had been for the supper, and
stole out down the long, empty passage-ways upon a tour of
investigation, to encounter no living soul save a sleepy night-steward
standing under a light, to con an ancient newspaper.
The man looked up sleepily as the unwonted apparition drew near him. He
recognized the beauty, and from her pallor and agitation decided she
must be ill.
"Anything I can do for you, miss?" he asked politely.
"Oh! no. Nothing whatever," answered Posey hurriedly. "I was only not
sleeping well, and feeling a little nervous in the storm."
"Storm, miss?" queried the steward abstractedly, swallowing a yawn.
"Yes, a fearful one. On our side, it blows like mad. Surely you must
hear it?"
With the ghost of a smile hovering upon his face, the man walked over
and gave a look out into the night.
"It _might_ be half a gale," he said dubiously. "But you see, miss, in
these ships we sort o' get out o' the way of knowing what is going on
outside!"
Half a gale! Posey's inclination to resent the belittling statement
went back to bed with her, but presently her sense of humor got the
better of the other poignant emotions, and she laughed at her own
alarms, of which the interruption had, on the whole, proved a wholesome
one; and at last, completely wearied out, fell into deep sleep, amid the
continued howling of the harmless wind.
The gay voyage that had begun so buoyantly passed, at the finish,
beneath the shadow of a cloud. The first sight of land gave but a sorry
welcome to the new-comers, as it immediately disappeared under a dense
curtain of fog. The ship crept up the Irish coast to the melancholy
tooting of the siren, answered by other craft, from ocean liners to
humble trawlers, made Queenstown toward morning in an interval of clear
weather, and, relapsing into the embrace of fog, came next evening
finally to anchor for the night at some distance from Liverpool to await
a safer opportunity of docking the monster, and letting her passengers
ashore. During the dolorous hours preceding their final parting the
disappointed passengers, before so friendly, smiling, intimate, seemed
to draw away from each other, darkling and afraid. Smiles, jokes, good
stories, civil speeches and compliments had been apparently packed up
with sea rugs and steamer chairs. The decks, dripping and cheerless,
offered no attraction to promenaders, the library was filled to
oppression with forms bending listlessly over books that could not hold
attention. Every desk held diligent scribblers, glaring suspiciously at
each other through the top of the separating screen, their places
awaited by more would-be correspondents impatient of delay. In the
companion-ways, subdued people huddled together or walked over the
unfortunate beings with buckets whose duty it is to swab the sticky
linoleum underfoot. A reminiscent odor of their last sea-dinner arose
to mingle with suggestions, coming none knew whence, of bilge, fresh
paint, tarpaulin and wet ropes. The only thoroughly lively mortals to
be seen were the stewards bustling everywhere; the tidy stewardesses,
with their cap-streamers flying; and the ladies' maids and valets who
hoped to get their charges early to bed, thus advancing their own time
of freedom and farewell.
At a comparatively early hour, the usual spaces where passengers
assemble were deserted, most people giving up the pretence of being
exhilarated by near approach to the British Isles. The dining-saloon
displayed still a few groups sitting around the tables sipping from
glasses, reading or talking; the smoking-room alone retained its usual
features of cards and conviviality.
Here, toward ten o'clock, Clandonald, looking more than commonly bored,
arose from a game in which he had not acquitted himself with brilliancy,
and strolled outside, alone.
Since the night of the supper, he had not been called upon to put into
effect his stern resolution of eschewing Miss Winstanley's society. She
had come to her meals late, or early, contriving to avoid more than a
passing contact with her acquaintances at table. While the rest of them,
notably Bobby Vane, deplored this circumstance, attributing it to a
caprice or an indisposition; while Miss Bleecker secretly chuckled with
delight that the enemy had so soon struck her colors, and Helen wondered
in silence why there was no following up on Posey's part of the
promising beginning of a friendship between them; while even the astute
Mariol was nonplussed at the young girl's sudden drop in spirit and
voluntary abdication of her past as reigning sovereign, Clandonald felt
himself a prey to more acute and genuine feeling concerning her than he
had ever dreamed of experiencing. So far from going ashore at
Queenstown, it was now his ardent wish to stay on the ship till he saw
the last of Miss Winstanley at Liverpool; since Mr. Winstanley had
announced that instead of running up to town on the special steamer
train with their friends, his daughter had taken a fancy to see Wales,
and they would accordingly stop over at Chester.
Up to the moment, perhaps, when Clandonald had interposed himself
between Posey and her annoyer, it had not occurred to him that he could
feel for her anything more than man's honest delight in youth and
extraordinary beauty, as well as the titillation that came to his mental
part from her amusing indifference to his rank, her straightforward
appeal to his comradeship. Even the fleeting revelation in her gaze
that had occasioned his resolve to fly, had excited until then in him
little more than regret at the misadventure.
When he had brusquely stood himself in Vereker's way, Helen Carstairs
had not observed what caused a current of pleasure to run through his
veins, and a quick rush of protective tenderness toward Posey to fill
and overflow his heart. Involuntarily the girl had pressed nearer to
him, slipping her arm through his, and, for the few seconds that this
attitude endured, he had wanted never to part with her again!
Then she had started away from him, almost guiltily, and Miss Carstairs
had carried her off in tears! From thenceforward a blank, as far as a
return to their old relations went! Clandonald, puzzling himself wofully
to know what he had done to alienate her, had spent hours in meditation
upon the theme. Now that he had lost her, the possession of her
guileless friendship, still more of her possible love, had become of
supreme value and importance; to win it he was ready to forfeit
anything, even to throwing over his excellent and devoted Mariol, whose
keen glances worried him, and whose wit and wisdom had temporarily lost
their flavor.
And so the last hour of the last evening had come around, and his last
chance to speak with her had gone! He knew how it would be on the
morrow. Nothing less conducive to an exposition of the tender passion
in any of its phases can be found than the landing on a foggy day at
Liverpool, with its crowds and coal smoke, its lowering skies, and dingy
surroundings, its hustling porters and watermen, the rush and rumble of
a great industrial city beginning at the water's edge, after the
inspiring solitudes of three thousand miles of salt water.
He would see her only amid a confusion of sights and sounds that would
effectually prevent any but the most banal phrases of adieu. She would
pass away from him and become as had all the other women he had met,
like the dissolving foam wreaths in their track across the Atlantic. He
was annoyed with himself for feeling it so much. The thing was out of
all reason. Perhaps, after he had speech with her once more, he might
better realize what an ass he had been to imagine she cared for him.
Things, in short, would adjust themselves on a common-sense footing.
But he could not get speech with her. An overture to that effect,
somewhat clumsily conveyed before dinner-time, had been rejected by Miss
Winstanley in such terms that Clandonald felt vexed and mortified,
wondering what or who could have set her so against him.
And here, at last, when he stepped out on deck, into the glare of the
electric lights, intending to return to his own room and prosaically go
to bed, the Fates would have it that he ran upon Mr. Winstanley
shivering like a true Southron in the raw atmosphere around the ship's
anchorage, his daughter clinging to his arm, looking most lovely in her
furs, her cheeks of a vivid carmine, the little locks on her forehead
drifting and curving in the moist air.
"Pretty dismal lookout, isn't it?" said the old gentleman cheerily.
"Kind o' evenin' that makes one think o' a tumbler full of hot Scotch,
and a big snappin' wood-fire, with a couple o' little darkies tumblin'
over each other to bring in the fat pine knots."
"If I could fly with the crow over in that direction," said Clandonald,
pointing toward the invisible shore, "I know of a hearthside not far
off, where at least part of those conditions would be fulfilled to me!
It is in the house of an uncle of mine, where as a boy I considered it
Paradise to go, and still do, sometimes for the shooting. One of those
homes of merry England (a misnomer now, I grant you) that you have
expressed so kind a desire to see, Miss Winstanley. I sincerely hope,
by the way, that you haven't forgotten your promise to persuade Mr.
Winstanley to give me a day at Beaumanoir, and that you'll settle upon a
date with Miss Carstairs--who has also agreed to honor me--before we
leave the ship."
"You are very kind, but our plans are undecided," said the girl, in a
low, tremulous tone.
"Seems as if the sea hadn't agreed with daughter this little bit,"
observed Mr. Winstanley. "She sort o' thinks she'll stop by a few days,
along the road, before we get to London. So this is a British fog? A
No. 1, I reckon. I hope you won't think me impolite if I call it a
regular searcher, sir. At this moment I feel it in the marrow o' my
bones. But anything to please the ladies, and when Posey said she'd a
headache that wouldn't leave her till she got a turn outside, out we
came to admire your English coast scenery, I tell her--Great Scott,
Posey, I've gone and done it, now!"
He had been fumbling in his breast pocket for a handkerchief, and drew
forth the missing article with a vexed look upon his mild old face.
"Done what, daddy?"
"Left my letter of credit in a coat in the steamer-trunk that was packed
for storage in Liverpool. And they've likely carried it out a'ready! I
must find that steward right away, dearie, and tip him to hunt it up."
"Let me go with you, please."
"You'd only be in the way. If you want to finish our walk, stay here,
and I'll come right back for you. Perhaps Lord Clandonald wouldn't
mind----"
"Oh! no, father! I'll stay alone."