OFF FOR EUROPE
The Silver Gate City party left New York the next Saturday on the
French steamer _La Bretagne_, bound for Havre. They took with them Jane
Leonard, a girl of eighteen, who was to have the care of Donald.
They went on board an hour before sailing, and Molly and Pauline
immediately ran below deck to put in order the stateroom which they
were to share with Weezy. It was a cosy, outside room near the middle
of the boat, with two berths, and opposite these a cardinal velvet sofa
on which Weezy was to sleep.
“It’s lucky your brush-and-comb case has a loop to hang it up by,
Molly,” said Pauline, as they unpacked their toilet articles. “You’d
better pin it to your curtain where you can reach it from your berth
without raising your head.”
“What for?” asked Molly, a little impatiently. She sometimes thought
her friend rather too fond of dictating.
“You’ll find out what for when we get into rough water and things go
pitching about the vessel,” responded Pauline in a significant tone.
“And please, please don’t put that cologne bottle in the rack. If you
do ’twill rattle and dance and thump till it breaks--or you wish it
would.”
Molly meekly dropped the perfumery back into her hand-bag, and hung the
bag upon a large hook beside the plate-glass mirror.
“You scare me to death, Polly,” she said, with a shiver. “I almost wish
I weren’t going to sea.”
“Oh, nonsense, you’ll like the ocean when you get used to its tricks,”
returned Pauline, with the assurance of an old sailor. “How big your
eyes have grown, Miss Scared-to-death! And they are just the color of
purple heliotrope.”
“The washed-out kind you mean, I suppose, Polly?”
“No, I don’t, I mean the washed-in kind that doesn’t fade,” said
Pauline, giving Molly’s auburn hair a vicious little pull. “You know
your eyes are perfectly lovely.”
“Come, girls.” Mrs. Rowe appeared in their doorway from her stateroom
across the passage. “Let us go on deck; the air above will be fresher.”
“So it will, mamma. Besides, we want to see the land every minute we
can,” sighed Molly.
As they mounted the stairs of the companion-way side by side, she
grasped her mother’s hand and held it fast. Now that the longed-for
hour of sailing had actually arrived, she felt an unexpected
reluctance to leaving the solid earth behind her and trusting herself
upon the heaving waters. But she said nothing more about this to
Pauline. Pauline would not have understood her dread. Neither for that
matter would fearless Kirke have understood it.
“I don’t see your father and the others, Molly,” said Mrs. Rowe rather
anxiously when she and the girls stood on the crowded deck. “I hope
they won’t lose sight of Donald.”
Pauline sprang upon a neighboring settee, where she could look down on
the heads of the people.
“Jane Leonard has him over there by the rail,” she cried presently.
“Mr. Rowe and papa are close by them.”
“Then if the child is safe, we may as well stay where we are,” returned
Mrs. Rowe, disposing herself upon the settee on which Molly and Pauline
were now leaning.
Her words were lost in the general bustle and confusion. Soon came the
cry, “All aboard!”
Visitors upon the boat rushed ashore, passengers upon the shore rushed
aboard. The last to cross the gang-plank being the captain of the
vessel.
Then shouts of good-by arose from the wharf, and answering shouts from
the steamer; the ropes were thrown off; and with hats and handkerchiefs
waving from her deck, _La Bretagne_ slipped from her moorings and
glided out into the harbor.
“Isn’t she a beauty, Molly?” cried Pauline, tapping the back of the
settee in her enthusiasm.
“Who is a beauty?”
Molly glanced over her shoulder and saw a graceful young lady seated
upon a camp-stool and sorrowfully gazing at the shore.
“Oh, are you speaking of that young lady in mourning, Polly? She’s
pretty, but don’t you think she’s too pale?”
“I was speaking of the steamboat, you dear little innocent,” answered
Pauline, laughing. “I hadn’t noticed the other lady before. How white
she is, isn’t she? All the color she has is in her eyelids.”
“Poor thing, she must have cried herself about blind, Polly.”
At this point Captain Bradstreet came with the deck-steward to arrange
the steamer-chairs of the party. Paul and Kirke followed with the
shawls and travelling-rugs. Then those who wished to do so extended
themselves at their ease and chatted or dozed till the dinner-bell
sounded. The sea was as smooth as glass, and the only motion of the
vessel was that caused by the throbbing engines.
“I’m not a bit seasick, boys,” boasted Molly, as all went down to
dinner; “I expected to be, but I’m not.”
“I hope you’ll not be sick during the passage,” replied Paul, but his
face wore a peculiar smile. It was not the first time he had heard
people boast in this way before they were fairly out to sea.
On entering the dining-room, Molly saw three tables stretching from one
end of it to the other, and on either side of these tables were rows of
cardinal velvet chairs. Instead of being supported by four legs, each
chair swung upon a pivot in a central standard screwed to the floor.
“Our seats are at the middle table,” said Paul. “There are your father
and mother just sitting down.”
Weezy was with them and whispered to Molly as she paused beside her,--
“I tell you how to get into your chair, Molly. You squeeze in sideways
and then jiggle it ’round.”
“Yes, yes, Weezy, I know.”
Molly wished her little sister would not make them both so conspicuous
when the young lady in mourning sat next Pauline on the opposite side
of the table and could hear every word.
Molly’s place was between Kirke and Weezy and over against Captain
Bradstreet.
“You’re Number Fifteen, Molly,” said Kirke, reading the black letters
on his ivory napkin-ring. “You’re Number Fifteen and I’m Number
Fourteen.”
“And I’m Number Sixteen,” added Weezy, after squinting hard at her own
ring.
“Yes, they treat us as if we were convicts in a state’s prison,” Molly
turned to Kirke with a shrug. “You know they make convicts drop their
own names and answer to numbers.”
“I should have made a good convict, if I had worn those overalls and”--
But here Kirke was interrupted by a waiter bringing him a plate of
soup.
They were a long time at dinner, which consisted of several courses and
ended with harlequin ice-cream,--red, green, and white.
Donald’s nurse had given her charge an early supper in the children’s
cabin, and when the party returned to the deck he was already in bed.
“My little brother can’t stay awake after dark ’cause it makes him
cross,” Weezy frankly explained to the pale young lady in black with
whom she had become friendly during dinner.
“Can’t he? That’s unfortunate,” replied the young lady, smiling.
“Oh, I don’t care. Not so very cross.”
Weezy was eying keenly a bag of black alligator skin dangling from her
companion’s belt. It was rather larger than an ordinary reticule, and
furnished with a steel clasp and chain. The young lady played absently
with the chain while talking.
[Illustration: “‘OH! I’M EVER SO SORRY,’ SAID WEEZY”
_Page 87_]
“She pets her pretty bag like a kitten. I wonder what’s in it?” thought
Weezy, wishing it would not be rude to inquire. She suspected that it
contained something very, very precious.
“Didn’t anybody come with you, lady?” she questioned shyly, being
exceedingly desirous to know. “Are you all _sole_ alone?”
“Yes, dear; all sole alone.” The speaker’s voice trembled. “My father
had intended to cross the ocean with me; but he was taken suddenly ill
last month, and--he has died.”
“Oh, I’m ever so sorry,” replied Weezy, with tears in her eyes,
thinking how she should feel if it were her own papa. “Haven’t you any
mamma?”
The young lady shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
Weezy’s hand stole quietly into that of her new friend.
“That’s dreadful--not to have any papa and mamma! Don’t you want to
see _my_ mamma? Please come over to the other side of the boat, and
I’ll _induce_ you to her.”
“Thank you, darling; but I’d rather not go.”
“My mamma’s very nice,” pleaded Weezy. “Her name is Mrs. Rowe. My name
is Louise Rowe, only ’most all the time it’s Weezy.”
“I’m sure your mother must be very nice, Miss Louise. She has a lovely
expression; yet, all the same, I can’t intrude upon her.”
“I wish you could,” said Weezy, wondering what was meant by “intrude.”
“If you could, you wouldn’t be lonesome, ’cause we have ten
peoples--only Donald is abed.”
“With ten in your party, Miss Louise, I’m sure you have enough
_peoples_ without me,” responded the young lady in crape, unconsciously
cheered by the child’s artless sympathy. “Look, your mamma is beckoning
you.”
Mrs. Rowe had feared lest her sociable little daughter might annoy the
stranger; but after hearing Weezy’s story about her, changed her mind.
“The poor girl looks very sad and lonely,” she said, watching the
sweet, sensitive face, which she had observed at dinner. “I’ll go back
with you, Weezy, and speak to her.”
And having crossed the deck, she gracefully introduced herself to the
desolate young lady in mourning, who in return gave her own name as
Miss Evans.
“Cannot I prevail upon you, Miss Evans, to make my little daughter and
the rest of us happy, by joining us?” said Mrs. Rowe cordially. “We
have a vacant seat to offer you.”
There was no resisting the rare charm of the lady’s manner, and the
desolate stranger gladly accepted the invitation, though on being
presented to the other members of the party she betrayed great shyness.
“Evidently unaccustomed to society,” thought Mrs. Rowe; “yet so
cultivated and refined! I can’t quite understand it.”
After they had become better acquainted, Miss Evans told her that her
father and herself had always lived together a retired life, seeing
more of books than of people. He was a scientist, and had devoted many
years to preparing a learned work on biology.
“As soon as his book was finished, papa meant to take a vacation with
me, Mrs. Rowe,” she said tremulously. “We were to visit my uncle in
Paris. But the very day after our passage on the steamer had been
engaged, papa had a fatal stroke of paralysis. And so,” added Miss
Evans, with touching pathos, “and so I came alone.”
“Alone in one sense, my dear Miss Evans; yes, sadly alone,” replied
Mrs. Rowe with feeling. “But please consider yourself one of our large
party. Please look upon us all as your friends.”
She pressed the young mourner’s hand warmly as she spoke, and resolved
to do all in her power to enliven her voyage.
Molly and Pauline bestowed stealthy glances upon the diffident newcomer
shrouded in black in Donald’s chair. In the splendor of the moonlight
her pale face assumed an unearthly radiance, and Kirke remarked
confidentially to Paul that she was “a regular stunner.”
“Solemn as a tombstone, though,” responded Paul. “And see her hang on
to that bag at her belt! Anybody’d think it was a life-preserver.”
“I suppose it was once, when the skin was on the alligator’s back,”
laughed Kirke. “Hark, Paul, your father is beginning a story!”
Captain Bradstreet’s stories were always worth hearing, and the
evening being warm and still, the little company was beguiled into
remaining up until a late hour to listen to some of his thrilling
experiences at sea.
“What delightful people these are!” thought the lonely Miss Evans. “It
is such a solace to be with them. And I had not expected to speak with
a soul on board.”