A Hot Day in New York, with News of an Interesting Marriage
At five o'clock that day the prow of the _Viluca_ cut the waters of
Newport harbour around Goat Island, and pointed for New York.
"Now is your time," said Mrs. Drelmer to Mauburn. "I'm sure the girl
likes you, and this row with the Milbreys has cut off any chance that
cub had. Why not propose to her to-night?"
"I _have_ seemed to be getting on," answered Mauburn. "But wait a bit.
There's that confounded girl over there. No telling what she'll do. She
might knock things on the head any moment."
"All the more reason for prompt action, and there couldn't very well be
anything to hurt you."
"By Jove! that's so; there couldn't, very well, could there? I'll take
your advice."
And so it befell that Mauburn and Miss Bines sat late on deck that
night, and under the witchery of a moon that must long since have
become hardened to the spectacle, the old, old story was told, to the
accompaniment of the engine's muffled throb, and the soft purring of
the silver waters as they slipped by the boat and blended with the
creamy track astern. So little variation was there in the time-worn
tale, and in the maid's reception of it, that neither need here be told
of in detail.
Nor were the proceedings next morning less tamely orthodox. Mrs. Bines
managed to forget her relationship of elder sister to the poor long
enough to behave as a mother ought when the heart of her daughter has
been given into a true-love's keeping. Percival deported himself
cordially.
"I'm really glad to hear it," he said to Mauburn. "I'm sure you'll make
sis as good a husband as she'll make you a wife; and that's very good,
indeed. Let's fracture a cold quart to the future Lady Casselthorpe."
"And to the future Lord Casselthorpe!" added Mrs. Drelmer, who was
warmly enthusiastic.
"Such a brilliant match," she murmured to Percival, when they had
touched glasses in the after-cabin. "I know more than one New York girl
who'd have jumped at the chance."
"We'll try to bear our honours modestly," he answered her.
The yacht lay at her anchorage in the East River. Percival made
preparations to go ashore with his mother.
"Stay here with the turtle-doves," he said to Mrs. Drelmer, "far enough
off, of course, to let them coo, and I'll be back with any people I can
pick up for a cruise."
"Trust me to contract the visual and aural infirmities of the ideal
chaperone," was Mrs. Drelmer's cheerful response. "And if you should
run across that poor dear of a husband of mine, tell him not to slave
himself to death for his thoughtless butterfly of a wife, who toils
not, neither does she spin. Tell him," she added, "that I'm playing
dragon to this engaged couple. It will cheer up the poor dear."
The city was a fiery furnace. But its prisoners were not exempt from
its heat, like certain holy ones of old. On the dock where Percival and
his mother landed was a listless throng of them, gasping for the faint
little breezes that now and then blew in from the water. A worn woman
with unkempt hair, her waist flung open at the neck, sat in a spot of
shade, and soothed a baby already grown too weak to be fretful. Mrs.
Bines spoke to her, while Percival bought a morning paper from a tiny
newsboy, who held his complete attire under one arm, his papers under
the other, and his pennies in his mouth, keeping meantime a shifty
side-glance on the policeman a block away, who might be expected to
interfere with his contemplated plunge.
"That poor soul's been there all night," said Mrs. Bines. "She's afraid
her baby's going to die; and yet she was so cheerful and polite about
it, and when I gave her some money the poor thing blushed. I told her
to bring the baby down to the floating hospital to-morrow, but I
mistrust it won't be alive, and--oh, there's an ambulance backed up to
the sidewalk; see what the matter is."
As Percival pushed through the outer edge of the crowd, a battered
wreck of a man past middle age was being lifted into the ambulance. His
eyes were closed, his face a dead, chalky white, and his body hung
limp.
"Sunstroke?" asked Percival.
The overworked ambulance surgeon, who seemed himself to be in need of
help, looked up.
"Nope; this is a case of plain starvation. I'm nearer sunstroke myself
than he is--not a wink of sleep for two nights now. Fifty-two runs
since yesterday at this time, and the bell still ringing. Gee! but it's
hot. This lad won't ever care about the weather again, though," he
concluded, jumping on to the rear step and grasping the rails on either
side while the driver clanged his gong and started off.
"Was it sunstroke?" asked Mrs. Bines.
"Man with stomach trouble," answered her son, shortly.
"They're so careless about what they eat this hot weather," Mrs. Bines
began, as they walked toward a carriage; "all sorts of heavy foods and
green fruit--"
"Well, if you must know, this one had been careless enough not to eat
anything at all. He was starved."
"Oh, dear! What a place! here people are starving, and look at us! Why,
we wasted enough from breakfast to feed a small family. It isn't right.
They never would allow such a thing in Montana City."
They entered the carriage and were driven slowly up a side street where
slovenly women idled in windows and doorways and half-naked children
chased excitedly after the ice-wagons.
"I used to think it wasn't right myself until I learned not to question
the ways of Providence."
"Providence, your grandmother! Look at those poor little mites fighting
for that ice!"
"We have to accept it. It seems to be proof of the Creator's
versatility. It isn't every one who would be nervy enough and original
enough to make a world where people starve to death right beside those
who have too much."
"That's rubbish!"
"You're blasphemous! and you're overwrought about the few cases of need
here. Think of those two million people that have just starved to death
in India."
"That wasn't my fault."
"Exactly; if you'd been there the list might have been cut down four or
five thousand; not more. It was the fault of whoever makes the weather.
It didn't rain and their curry crop failed--or whatever they raise--and
there you are; and we couldn't help matters any by starving ourselves
to death."
"Well, I know of a few matters here I can help. And just look at all
those empty houses boarded up!" she cried later, as they crossed
Madison Avenue. "Those poor things bake themselves to death down in
their little ovens, and these great cool places are all shut up. Why,
that poor little baby's hands were just like bird's claws."
"Well, don't take your sociology too seriously," Percival warned her,
as they reached the hotel. "Being philanthropic is obeying an instinct
just as selfish as any of the others. A little of it is all right--but
don't be a slave to your passions. And be careful of your health."
In his mail at the Hightower was a note from Mrs. Akemit:
"NEW LONDON, July 29th.
"You DEAR THOUGHTFUL MAN: I'll be delighted, and the aunt, a worthy
sister of the dear bishop, has consented. She is an acidulous maiden
person with ultra-ritualistic tendencies. At present she is strong on
the reunion of Christendom, and holds that the Anglican must be the
unifying medium of the two religious extremes. So don't say I didn't
warn you fairly. She will, however, impart an air of Episcopalian
propriety to that naughty yacht of yours--something sadly needed if I
am to believe the tales I hear about its little voyages to nowhere in
particular.
"Babe sends her love, and says to tell 'Uncle Percibal' that the ocean
tastes 'all nassy.' She stood upon the beach yesterday after making
this discovery involuntarily, and proscribed it with one magnificent
wave of her hand and a brief exclamation of disgust--turned her back
disrespectfully upon a body of water that is said to cover
two-thirds--or is it three-fourths?--of the earth's surface. Think of
it! She seemed to suspect she had been imposed upon in the matter of
its taste, and is going to tell the janitor directly we get home, in
order that the guilty ones may be seen to. Her little gesture of
dismissal was superbly contemptuous. I wish you had been with me to
watch her. Yes, the bathing-suit does have little touches of red, and
red--but this will never do. Give us a day's notice, and believe me,
"Sincerely,
"FLORENCE VERDON AKEMIT.
"P.S. Babe is on the back of my chair, cuddling down in my neck, and
says, 'Send him your love, too, Mommie. Now don't you forget.'"
He telegraphed Mrs. Akemit: "Will reach New London to-morrow. Assure
your aunt of my delight at her acceptance. I have long held that the
reunion must come as she thinks it will."
Then he ventured into the heat and glare of Broadway where humanity
stewed and wilted. At Thirty-second Street he ran into Burman, with
whom he had all but cornered wheat.
"You're the man I wanted to see," said Percival.
"Hurry and look! I'm melting fast."
"Come off on the yacht."
"My preserver! I was just going down to the Oriental, but your dug-out
wins me hands down. Come into this poor-man's club. I must have a cold
drink taller than a church steeple."
"Anybody else in town we can take?"
"There's Billy Yelverton--our chewing-gum friend; just off the
_Lucania_ last night; and Eddie Arledge and his wife. They're in town
because Eddie was up in supplementary or something--some low, coarse
brute of a tradesman wanted his old bill paid, and wouldn't believe
Eddie when he said he couldn't spare the money. Eddie is about as
lively as a dish of cold breakfast food, but his wife is all right, all
right. Retiring from the footlights' glare didn't spoil Mrs. E.
Wadsworth Arledge,--not so you could notice it."
"Well, see Eddie if you can, and I'll find Yelverton; he's probably at
the hotel yet; and meet me there by five, so we can get out of this
little amateur hell."
"And quit trying to save that collar," urged Burman, as they parted;
"you look foolisher than a horse in a straw hat with it on anyway. Let
it go and tuck in your handkerchief like the rest of us. See you at
five!"
At the hour named the party had gathered. Percival, Arledge and his
lively wife, Yelverton, who enjoyed the rare distinction of having lost
money to Percival, and Burman. East they drove through the street where
less fortunate mortals panted in the dead afternoon shade, and out on
to the dock, whence the _Viluca's_ naphtha launch presently put them
aboard that sumptuous craft. A little breeze there made the heat less
oppressive.
"We'll be under way as soon as they fetch that luggage out," Percival
assured his guests.
"It's been frightfully oppressive all day, even out here," said Mrs.
Drelmer, "but the engaged ones haven't lost their tempers once, even if
the day was trying. And really they're the most unemotional and
matter-of-fact couple I ever saw. Oh! do give me that stack of papers
until I catch up with the news again."
Percival relinquished to her the evening papers he had bought before
leaving the hotel, and Mrs. Drelmer in the awninged shade at the stern
of the boat was soon running through them.
The others had gone below, where Percival was allotting staterooms, and
urging every one to "order whatever cold stuff you like and get into as
few things as the law allows. For my part, I'd like to wear nothing but
a cold bath."
Mrs. Drelmer suddenly betrayed signs of excitement. She sat up straight
in the wicker deck-chair, glanced down a column of her newspaper, and
then looked up.
Mauburn's head appeared out of the cabin's gloom. He was still speaking
to some one below. Mrs. Drelmer rattled the paper and waved it at him.
He came up the stairs.
"What's the row?"
"Read it!"
He took the paper and glanced at the headlines. "I knew she'd do it. A
chap always comes up with something of that sort, and I was beginning
to feel so chippy!" He read:
"London, July 30th.--Lord Casselthorpe to-day wed Miss 'Connie' Burke,
the music-hall singer who has been appearing at the Alhambra. The
marriage was performed, by special license, at St. Michael's Church,
Chester Square, London, the Rev. Canon Mecklin, sub-dean of the Chapel
Royal, officiating. The honeymoon will be spent at the town-house of
the groom, in York Terrace. Lord Casselthorpe has long been known as
the blackest sheep of the British Peerage, being called the 'Coster
Peer' on account of his unconventional language, his coarse manner, and
slovenly attire. Two years ago he was warned off Newmarket Heath and
the British turf by the Jockey Club. He is eighty-eight years old. The
bride, like some other lights of the music-hall who have become the
consorts of Britain's hereditary legislators, has enjoyed considerable
ante-nuptial celebrity among the gilded youth of the metropolis, and is
said to have been especially admired at one time by the next in line of
this illustrious family, the Hon. Cecil G.H. Mauburn.
"The Hon. Cecil G. H. Mauburn, mentioned in the above cable despatch,
has been rather well-known in New York society for two years past. His
engagement to the daughter of a Montana mining magnate, not long
deceased, has been persistently rumoured."
Mauburn was pale under his freckles.
"Have they seen it yet?"
"I don't think so," she answered. "We might drop these papers over the
rail here."
"That's rot, Mrs. Drelmer; it's sure to be talked of, and anyway I
don't want to be sneaky, you know."
Percival came up from the cabin with a paper in his hand.
"I see you have it, too," he said, smiling. "Burman just handed me
this."
"Isn't it perfectly disreputable!" exclaimed Mrs. Drelmer.
"Why? I only hope I'll have as much interest in life by the time I'm
that age."
"But how will your sister take it?" asked Mauburn; "she may be afraid
this will knock my title on the head, you know."
"Oh, I see," said Percival; "I hadn't thought of that."
"Only it can't," continued Mauburn. "Hang it all, that blasted old
beggar will be eighty-nine, you know, in a fortnight. There simply
can't be any issue of the marriage, and that--that blasted--"
"Better not try to describe her--while I'm by, you know," said Mrs.
Drelmer, sympathetically.
"Well--his wife--you know, will simply worry him into the grave a bit
sooner, I fancy--that's all can possibly come of it."
"Well, old man," said Percival, "I don't pretend to know the workings
of my sister's mind, but you ought to be able to win a girl on your own
merits, title or no title."
"Awfully good of you, old chap. I'm sure she does care for me."
"But of course it will be only fair to sis to lay the matter before her
just as it is."
"To be sure!" Mauburn assented.
"And now, thank the Lord, we're under way. Doesn't that breeze save
your life, though? We'll eat here on deck."
The _Viluca_ swung into mid-stream, and was soon racing to the north
with a crowded Fall River boat.
"But anyway," concluded Percival, after he had explained Mauburn's
position to his sister, "he's a good fellow, and if you suit each other
even the unexpected wouldn't make any difference."
"Of course not," she assented, "'the rank is but the guinea's stamp,' I
know--but I wasn't meaning to be married for quite a time yet,
anyway,--it's such fun just being engaged."
"A mint julep?" Mauburn was inquiring of one who had proposed it. "Does
it have whiskey in it?"
"It does," replied Percival, overhearing the question; "whiskey may be
said to pervade, even to infest it. Try five or six, old man; that many
make a great one-night trouble cure. And I can't have any one with
troubles on this Cunarder--not for the next thirty days. I need
cheerfulness and rest for a long time after this day in town. Ah!
General Hemingway says that dinner is served; let's be at it before the
things get all hot!"