And so, on a late September afternoon, the _St. Luke_, sliding away from
her moorings, relieved Uncle Arthur of his burden.
It was final this time, for the two alien enemies once out of it would
not be let into England again till after the war. The enemies themselves
knew it was final; and the same knowledge that made Uncle Arthur feel so
pleasant as he walked home across his park from golf to tea that for a
moment he was actually of a mind to kiss Aunt Alice when he got in, and
perhaps even address her in the language of resuscitated passion, which
in Uncle Arthur's mouth was Old Girl,--an idea he abandoned, however, in
case it should make her self-satisfied and tiresome--the same knowledge
that produced these amiable effects in Uncle Arthur, made his alien
nieces cling very close together as they leaned over the side of the
_St. Luke_ hungrily watching the people on the wharf.
For they loved England. They loved it with the love of youth whose
enthusiasms have been led by an adored teacher always in one direction.
And they were leaving that adored teacher, their mother, in England. It
seemed like losing her a second time to go away, so far away, and leave
her there. It was nonsense, they knew, to feel like that. She was with
them just the same; wherever they went now she would be with them, and
they could hear her saying at that very moment, "Little darlings,
_don't_ cry...." But it was a gloomy, drizzling afternoon, the sort of
afternoon anybody might be expected to cry on, and not one of the people
waving handkerchiefs were waving handkerchiefs to them.
"We ought to have hired somebody," thought Anna-Rose, eyeing the
handkerchiefs with miserable little eyes.
"I believe I've gone and caught a cold," remarked Anna-Felicitas in her
gentle, staid voice, for she was having a good deal of bother with her
eyes and her nose, and could no longer conceal the fact that she was
sniffing.
Anna-Rose discreetly didn't look at her. Then she suddenly whipped out
her handkerchief and waved it violently.
Anna-Felicitas forgot her eyes and nose and craned her head forward.
"Who are you waving to?" she asked, astonished.
"Good-bye!" cried Anna-Rose, waving, "Good-bye! Good-bye!"
"Who? Where? Who are you talking to?" asked Anna-Felicitas. "Has any one
come to see us off?"
"Good-bye! Good-bye!" cried Anna-Rose.
The figures on the wharf were getting smaller, but not until they had
faded into a blur did Anna-Rose leave off waving. Then she turned round
and put her arm through Anna-Felicitas's and held on to her very tight
for a minute.
"There wasn't anybody," she said. "Of course there wasn't. But do you
suppose I was going to have us _looking_ like people who aren't seen
off?"
And she drew Anna-Felicitas away to the chairs, and when they were
safely in them and rolled up to their chins in the rug, she added, "That
man--" and then stopped. "What man?"
"Standing just behind us--"
"Was there a man?" asked Anna-Felicitas, who never saw men any more than
she, in her brief career at the hospital, had seen pails.
"Yes. Looking as if in another moment he'd be sorry for us," said
Anna-Rose.
"Sorry for us!" repeated Anna-Felicitas, roused to indignation.
"Yes. Did you ever?"
Anna-Felicitas said, with a great deal of energy while she put her
handkerchief finally and sternly away, that she didn't ever; and after a
pause Anna-Rose, remembering one of her many new responsibilities and
anxieties--she had so many that sometimes for a time she didn't remember
some of them--turned her head to Anna-Felicitas, and fixing a worried
eye on her said, "You won't go forgetting your Bible, will you, Anna
F.?"
"My Bible?" repeated Anna-Felicitas, looking blank.
"Your German Bible. The bit about _wenn die bösen Buben locken, so folge
sie nicht_."
Anna-Felicitas continued to look blank, but Anna-Rose with a troubled
brow said again, "You won't go and forget that, will you, Anna F.?"
For Anna-Felicitas was very pretty. In most people's eyes she was very
pretty, but in Anna-Rose's she was the most exquisite creature God had
yet succeeded in turning out. Anna-Rose concealed this conviction from
her. She wouldn't have told her for worlds. She considered it wouldn't
have been at all good for her; and she had, up to this, and ever since
they could both remember, jeered in a thoroughly sisterly fashion at her
defects, concentrating particularly on her nose, on her leanness, and
on the way, unless constantly reminded not to, she drooped.
But Anna-Rose secretly considered that the same nose that on her own
face made no sort of a show at all, directly it got on to
Anna-Felicitas's somehow was the dearest nose; and that her leanness was
lovely,--the same sort of slender grace her mother had had in the days
before the heart-breaking emaciation that was its last phase; and that
her head was set so charmingly on her neck that when she drooped and
forgot her father's constant injunction to sit up,--"For," had said her
father at monotonously regular intervals, "a maiden should be as
straight as a fir-tree,"--she only seemed to fall into even more
attractive lines than when she didn't. And now that Anna-Rose alone had
the charge of looking after this abstracted and so charming younger
sister, she felt it her duty somehow to convey to her while tactfully
avoiding putting ideas into the poor child's head which might make her
conceited, that it behoved her to conduct herself with discretion.
But she found tact a ticklish thing, the most difficult thing of all to
handle successfully; and on this occasion hers was so elaborate, and so
carefully wrapped up in Scriptural language, and German Scripture at
that, that Anna-Felicitas's slow mind didn't succeed in disentangling
her meaning, and after a space of staring at her with a mild inquiry in
her eyes, she decided that perhaps she hadn't got one. She was much too
polite though, to say so, and they sat in silence under the rug till the
_St. Luke_ whistled and stopped, and Anna-Rose began hastily to make
conversation about Christopher and Columbus.
She was ashamed of having shown so much of her woe at leaving England.
She hoped Anna-Felicitas hadn't noticed. She certainly wasn't going on
like that. When the _St. Luke_ whistled, she was ashamed that it wasn't
only Anna-Felicitas who jumped. And the amount of brightness she put
into her voice when she told Anna-Felicitas it was pleasant to go and
discover America was such that that young lady, who if slow was sure,
said to herself, "Poor little Anna-R., she's really taking it dreadfully
to heart."
The _St. Luke_ was only dropping anchor for the night in the Mersey, and
would go on at daybreak. They gathered this from the talk of passengers
walking up and down the deck in twos and threes and passing and
repassing the chairs containing the silent figures with the round heads
that might be either the heads of boys or of girls, and they were
greatly relieved to think they wouldn't have to begin and be sea-sick
for some hours yet. "So couldn't we walk about a little?" suggested
Anna-Felicitas, who was already stiff from sitting on the hard cane
chair.
But Aunt Alice had told them that the thing to do on board a ship if
they wished, as she was sure they did, not only to avoid being sick but
also conspicuous, was to sit down in chairs the moment the ship got
under way, and not move out of them till it stopped again. "Or, at
least, as rarely as possible," amended Aunt Alice, who had never herself
been further on a ship than to Calais, but recognized that it might be
difficult to avoid moving sooner or later if it was New York you were
going to. "Two such young girls travelling alone should be seen as
seldom as ever you can manage. Your Uncle is sending you second-class
for that very reason, because it is so much less conspicuous."
It was also very much less expensive, and Uncle Arthur's generosities
were of the kind that suddenly grow impatient and leave off. Just as in
eating he was as he said, for plain roast and boiled, and messes be
damned, so in benefactions he was for lump sums and done with it; and
the extras, the driblets, the here a little and there a little that were
necessary, or were alleged by Aunt Alice to be necessary, before he
finally got rid of those blasted twins, annoyed him so profoundly that
when it came to taking their passage he could hardly be got not to send
them in the steerage. This was too much, however, for Aunt Alice, whose
maid was going with them as far as Euston and therefore would know what
sort of tickets they had, and she insisted with such quiet obstinacy
that they should be sent first-class that Uncle Arthur at last split the
difference and consented to make it second. To her maid Aunt Alice also
explained that second-class was less conspicuous.
Anna-Rose, mindful of Aunt Alice's words, hesitated as to the wisdom of
walking about and beginning to be conspicuous already, but she too was
stiff, and anything the matter with one's body has a wonderful effect,
as she had already in her brief career had numerous occasions to
observe, in doing away with prudent determinations. So, after cautiously
looking round the corners to see if the man who was on the verge of
being sorry for them were nowhere in sight, they walked up and down the
damp, dark deck; and the motionlessness, and silence, and mist gave them
a sensation of being hung mid-air in some strange empty Hades between
two worlds.
Far down below there was a faint splash every now and then against the
side of the _St. Luke_ when some other steamer, invisible in the mist,
felt her way slowly by. Out ahead lay the sea, the immense uneasy sea
that was to last ten days and nights before they got to the other side,
hour after hour of it, hour after hour of tossing across it further and
further away; and forlorn and ghostly as the ship felt, it yet, because
on either side of it were still the shores of England, didn't seem as
forlorn and ghostly as the unknown land they were bound for. For
suppose, Anna-Felicitas inquired of Anna-Rose, who had been privately
asking herself the same thing, America didn't like them? Suppose the
same sort of difficulties were waiting for them over there that had
dogged their footsteps in England?
"First of all," said Anna-Rose promptly, for she prided herself on the
readiness and clearness of her explanations, "America will like us,
because I don't see why it shouldn't. We're going over to it in exactly
the same pleasant spirit, Anna-F.,--and don't you go forgetting it and
showing your disagreeable side--that the dove was in when it flew across
the waters to the ark, and with olive branches in our beaks just the
same as the dove's, only they're those two letters to Uncle Arthur's
friends."
"But do you think Uncle Arthur's friends--" began Anna-Felicitas, who
had great doubts as to everything connected with Uncle Arthur.
"And secondly," continued Anna-Rose a little louder, for she wasn't
going to be interrupted, and having been asked a question liked to give
all the information in her power, "secondly, America is the greatest of
the neutrals except the _liebe Gott_, and is bound particularly to
prize us because we're so unusually and peculiarly neutral. What ever was
more neutral than you and me? We're neither one thing nor the other, and
yet at the same time we're both." Anna-Felicitas remarked that it sounded
rather as if they were the Athanasian Creed.
"And thirdly," went on Anna-Rose, waving this aside, "there's £200
waiting for us over there, which is a very nice warm thing to think of.
We never had £200 waiting for us anywhere in our lives before, did
we,--so you remember that, and don't get grumbling."
Anna-Felicitas mildly said that she wasn't grumbling but that she
couldn't help thinking what a great deal depended on the goodwill of
Uncle Arthur's friends, and wished it had been Aunt Alice's friends they
had letters to instead, because Aunt Alice's friends were more likely to
like her.
Anna-Rose rebuked her, and said that the proper spirit in which to start
on a great adventure was one of faith and enthusiasm, and that one
didn't have doubts.
Anna-Felicitas said she hadn't any doubts really, but that she was very
hungry, not having had anything that could be called a meal since
breakfast, and that she felt like the sheep in "Lycidas," the hungry
ones who looked up and were not fed, and she quoted the lines in case
Anna-Rose didn't recollect them (which Anna-Rose deplored, for she knew
the lines by heart, and if there was any quoting to be done liked to do
it herself), and said she felt just like that,--"Empty," said
Anna-Felicitas, "and yet swollen. When do you suppose people have food
on board ships? I don't believe we'd mind nearly so much about--oh well,
about leaving England, if it was after dinner."
"I'm not minding leaving England," said Anna-Rose quickly. "At least,
not more than's just proper."
"Oh, no more am I, of course," said Anna-Felicitas airily. "Except
what's proper."
"And even if we were feeling it _dreadfully_," said Anna-Rose, with a
little catch in her voice, "which, of course, we're not, dinner wouldn't
make any difference. Dinner doesn't alter fundamentals."
"But it helps one to bear them," said Anna-Felicitas.
"Bear!" repeated Anna-Rose, her chin in the air. "We haven't got much to
bear. Don't let me hear you talk of bearing things, Anna-F."
"I won't after dinner," promised Anna-Felicitas.
They thought perhaps they had better ask somebody whether there wouldn't
soon be something to eat, but the other passengers had all disappeared.
They were by themselves on the gloomy deck, and there were no lights.
The row of cabin windows along the wall were closely shuttered, and the
door they had come through when first they came on deck was shut too,
and they couldn't find it in the dark. It seemed so odd to be feeling
along a wall for a door they knew was there and not be able to find it,
that they began to laugh; and the undiscoverable door cheered them up
more than anything that had happened since seeing the last of Uncle
Arthur.
"It's like a game," said Anna-Rose, patting her hands softly and vainly
along the wall beneath the shuttered windows.
"It's like something in 'Alice in Wonderland,'" said Anna-Felicitas,
following in her tracks.
A figure loomed through the mist and came toward them. They left off
patting, and stiffened into straight and motionless dignity against the
wall till it should have passed. But it didn't pass. It was a male
figure in a peaked cap, probably a steward, they thought, and it stopped
in front of them and said in an American voice, "Hello."
Anna-Rose cast rapidly about in her mind for the proper form of reply
to Hello.
Anna-Felicitas, instinctively responsive to example murmured "Hello"
back again.
Anna-Rose, feeling sure that nobody ought to say just Hello to people
they had never seen before, and that Aunt Alice would think they had
brought it on themselves by being conspicuous, decided that perhaps
"Good-evening" would regulate the situation, and said it.
"You ought to be at dinner," said the man, taking no notice of this.
"That's what _we_ think," agreed Anna-Felicitas earnestly.
"Can you please tell us how to get there?" asked Anna-Rose, still
distant, but polite, for she too very much wanted to know.
"But _don't_ tell us to ask the Captain," said Anna-Felicitas, even more
earnestly.
"No," said Anna-Rose, "because we won't."
The man laughed. "Come right along with me," he said, striding on; and
they followed him as obediently as though such persons as possible _böse
Buben_ didn't exist.
"First voyage I guess," said the man over his shoulder.
"Yes," said the twins a little breathlessly, for the man's legs were
long and they could hardly keep up with him.
"English?" said the man.
"Ye--es," said Anna-Rose.
"That's to say, practically," panted the conscientious Anna-Felicitas.
"What say?" said the man, still striding on. "I said," Anna-Felicitas
endeavoured to explain, hurrying breathlessly after him so as to keep
within reach of his ear, "practically."
"Ah," said the man; and after a silence, broken only by the pantings for
breath of the twins, he added: "Mother with you?"
They didn't say anything to that, it seemed such a dreadful question to
have to answer, and luckily he didn't repeat it, but, having got to the
door they had been searching for, opened it and stepped into the bright
light inside, and putting out his arm behind him pulled them in one
after the other over the high wooden door-frame.
Inside was the same stewardess they had seen earlier in the afternoon,
engaged in heatedly describing what sounded like grievances to an
official in buttons, who seemed indifferent. She stopped suddenly when
the man appeared, and the official took his hands out of his pockets and
became alert and attentive, and the stewardess hastily picked up a tray
she had set down and began to move away along a passage.
The man, however, briefly called "Hi," and she turned round and came
back even more quickly than she had tried to go.
"You see," explained Anna-Rose in a pleased whisper to Anna-Felicitas,
"it's Hi she answers to."
"Yes," agreed Anna-Felicitas. "It's waste of good circumlocutions to
throw them away on her."
"Show these young ladies the dining-room," said the man.
"Yes, sir," said the stewardess, as polite as you please.
He nodded to them with a smile that developed for some reason into a
laugh, and turned away and beckoned to the official to follow him, and
went out again into the night.
"Who was that nice man?" inquired Anna-Rose, following the stewardess
down a broad flight of stairs that smelt of india-rubber and machine-oil
and cooking all mixed up together.
"And please," said Anna-Felicitas with mild severity, "don't tell us to
ask the Captain, because we really do know better than that."
"I thought you must be relations," said the stewardess.
"We are," said Anna-Rose. "We're twins."
The stewardess stared. "Twins what of?" she asked.
"What of?" echoed Anna-Rose. "Why, of each other, of course."
"I meant relations of the Captain's," said the stewardess shortly,
eyeing them with more disfavour than ever.
"You seem to have the Captain greatly on your mind," said
Anna-Felicitas. "He is no relation of ours."
"You're not even friends, then?" asked the stewardess, pausing to stare
round at them at a turn in the stairs as they followed her down
arm-in-arm.
"Of course we're friends," said Anna-Rose with some heat. "Do you
suppose we quarrel?"
"No, I didn't suppose you quarrelled with the Captain," said the
stewardess tartly. "Not on board this ship anyway."
She didn't know which of the two she disliked most, the short girl or
the long girl.
"You seem to be greatly obsessed by the Captain," said Anna-Felicitas
gently. "Obsessed!" repeated the stewardess, tossing her head. She was
unacquainted with the word, but instantly suspected it of containing a
reflection on her respectability. "I've been a widow off and on for ten
years now," she said angrily, "and I guess it would take more than even
the Captain to obsess _me_."
They had reached the glass doors leading into the dining-room, and the
stewardess, having carried out her orders, paused before indignantly
leaving them and going upstairs again to say, "If you're friends, what
do you want to know his name for, then?"
"Whose name?" asked Anna-Felicitas.
"The Captain's," said the stewardess.
"We don't want to know the Captain's name," said Anna-Felicitas
patiently. "We don't want to know anything about the Captain."
"Then--" began the stewardess. She restrained herself, however, and
merely bitterly remarking: "That gentleman _was_ the Captain," went
upstairs and left them.
Anna-Rose was the first to recover. "You see we took your advice," she
called up after her, trying to soften her heart, for it was evident that
for some reason her heart was hardened, by flattery. "You _told_ us to
ask the Captain."