Lady Betty Across the Water Part 4

I turned sick. The thought of his life being crushed out while we all looked on, helpless, was awful. The sea was terrible enough in itself--the great, wide, merciless, blue water, which sparkled so coldly, and laughed in its power--but to be crunched up by the jaws of a monster--I shut my eyes, and couldn't open them until I heard men saying the strong wind to starboard might save him. I believe I must have been unconsciously praying, and my hands were clasped so tightly together that afterwards my fingers ached.

People on our deck made a rush towards the stern, on the port side, for the s.h.i.+p had been steaming so fast that already we were forging away from the child who had fallen and the man who had jumped after him.

Sally and I were carried along with the rush. She seized me by the hand, but we didn't speak a word. If dear friends, instead of two strangers in a far remote sphere of life, had been in deadly danger, I don't think the sickness at my heart could have been worse. I would have given years if at that moment I could have had the magical power to stop the s.h.i.+p instantly, with one wave of my hand.

But it was being stopped, by another power than mine. I felt the deck s.h.i.+ver under my feet, like a thoroughbred horse, pulled on to his haunches. The accident had been seen from the bridge; an order to stop the s.h.i.+p had been telegraphed down to the engine-room, and obeyed.

Still, when Sally Woodburn and I had been carried by the crowd far enough towards the stern to look out over the blue wilderness of water we were leaving behind, the s.h.i.+p's heart hadn't ceased its throb, throb, to which we had all grown so accustomed in the last few days.

"He's got the child!" exclaimed Sally. "See, he's hauling the little creature on to his back with one hand, and swimming with the other.

Glorious fellow!"

Yes, there were the two heads bobbing like black corks in the tossing waves, close together. I pictured so vividly what my sensations would be, if I were down there, a mere speck in that vast expanse of blue, that I almost tasted salt water in my mouth, and felt the choking tingle of it in my lungs.

Then, suddenly the s.h.i.+p's heart ceased to beat; and the unaccustomed stillness was as startling as an unexpected noise. A boat shot down from the davits, with several sailors on board; a few seconds later they were rowing away towards those two bobbing black corks, and I loved them as they bent to their oars.

I can't remember breathing once, or even winking, until I saw the child being lifted into the boat, and the man climbing in after. What a shout went up from the s.h.i.+p! Sally clapped her pretty, dimpled hands, but I only let my breath go at last, in a great sigh.

There was such a crush that I couldn't see them when they came on board, but there was more shouting and hurrahing, and men slapped each other on the shoulder and laughed.

Throb, throb went the machinery again, and there was no sign that anything out of the monotonous round had happened, except in the excited way that people talked. Several men we knew paid a visit to the steerage, and came back with stories which flew about from group to group in the first-cla.s.s cabin, and no doubt the second too.

It seemed that the little boy who had fallen into the sea was the only son of his mother, a widow. They were Swedes, and the woman, who is on her way to the States to try and find a place as a servant, was quite prostrated with the agonising suspense she had suffered. As for the little boy himself, he was not seriously the worse for his experience.

The doctor was with him, and said that he would be as well as ever in a few hours. A subscription for the mother and child had already been started among the first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers, and would probably be made up to quite a good sum.

"But what is going to be done for the one who saved the little boy's life?" I asked the man who was telling me the news, a Mr. Doremus, who is a cousin of Mrs. Van der Windt's, very full of fun, and good natured.

"A nice little pedestal, labelled 'Our Hero,' will be built out of the ladies' admiration, and given to him to pose on," said Mr. Doremus.

"However, I must say for the gentleman,--though I've only seen him dripping wet, and shaking himself like a big dog,--he didn't give me the impression of being the sort of chap to say 'thank you' for the perch."

"Of course he isn't!" said I. "But I do think it's a shame if he's left out when subscriptions are going round. Of course he must be poor, or he wouldn't be travelling in the steerage. Something ought to be done to show him that the pa.s.sengers admire his bravery--not anything _fulsome_, but something _nice_."

"I guess you don't know the American disposition yet, as well as you will after you've wrestled with it on its native heath for a few months," remarked Mr. Doremus in his quaint way. "That chap down in the steerage _is_ an American, whatever else he may be, or I'll eat my best hat; and I wouldn't for five cents be in the deputation to present him with the something 'not fulsome but nice' on a little silver salver. I should expect him to give me the frosty mitt."

This expression struck me as being so funny that I burst out laughing, though I had to stop and think for a second before I could quite see what Mr. Doremus really meant; but I wouldn't forget my point in a laugh.

"Perhaps it wouldn't do to offer money," I went on. "Suppose we got up a subscription to buy him a second-cla.s.s pa.s.sage for the rest of the way. That would show appreciation, wouldn't it?"

"It would," replied Mr. Doremus, gravely, "and if you'll start the subscription, Lady Betty, it'll go like wildfire."

"Very well, then, I will," said I. "Though I'd rather someone else did it."

"It wouldn't be so popular from any other quarter. I'll help you. We'll go floating around together and pa.s.s the plate; and if you like, I'll do the talking."

I agreed to this, and if I'd thought about it at all, I should have supposed that Mrs. Ess Kay would be as pleased as Punch with such an arrangement, because Mr. Doremus, as a relative of Mrs. Van der Windt's, is the only man on board to whom she makes herself agreeable.

It appears that he has started several fas.h.i.+ons in New York, the most important being to drive in some park they have there, without a hat.

But probably if the truth were known, he lost it, like the fox that tried to make his friends chop off their tails.

Mrs. Ess Kay had gone to her stateroom soon after lunch, as the motion of the s.h.i.+p had given her a headache, and I didn't happen to be near Sally Woodburn; so I said "yes" to Mr. Doremus on the impulse of the moment, without stopping to think whether I ought to ask permission first.

We had great fun going about, for Mr. Doremus was so witty and said such amusing things to the people he begged of, that I could hardly speak for laughing, and everyone else laughed too. I wished that he wouldn't put me forward always, and say it was my idea, and I had started the subscription; but he argued that I must sacrifice myself for the success of the Charity, just as I would at home, if I had to work off damaged pincus.h.i.+ons or day before yesterday's violets at a bazaar. Of course, not being out, I've never sold anything at bazaars, but Victoria is continually doing it in the Season, and she makes quite a virtue of forcing perfect strangers to "stand and deliver," as she calls it. This seemed much the same sort of thing to me, and so I felt nice and virtuous, too, as Vic does when she comes home with a new frock torn and stepped on, and lies in bed late next day, with Thompson to brush her hair, and me to read to her.

People were very kind, and though they laughed a great deal, they gave so much that before we'd been half the rounds, Mr. Doremus said we had more than enough for our friend. He wanted to know if I would like to "hit the nail on the head" and settle matters at once, by arranging with the purser for a second-cla.s.s cabin to be put at the hero's disposal. I wanted him to do that part alone, but he pretended to be shy, and said he had grown to depend so entirely on my co-operation, that he felt unequal to undertaking any responsibility without it. He told the same story to the purser that he had told others, about my being the one to start the subscription, and he wanted me to sign a kind of letter which he wrote, to the effect that the pa.s.sengers had chosen this way of testifying their appreciation of a gallant deed, and so on; but I wouldn't, and he stopped teasing at last, when he saw that I was going to be vexed.

After the business was what Mr. Doremus called "fixed up," he took me back to my chair on deck. Sally wasn't in her place, and as I was wondering what had become of her, the dressing-for-dinner bugle went wailing over the s.h.i.+p like a hungry Banshee. I said to myself that Sally must have gone early because her frock was to be particularly elaborate. I felt conscious of having heaps of interesting things to tell, and I understood exactly what Victoria means when she says she's in one of her "pretty and popular moods."

I danced into our stateroom, where only a drawn curtain covers the open doorway. No one was there, and the cabin was so quiet that it seemed to greet me with a warning "S-s.h.!.+"

Down fell my spirits with a dull thud, though I didn't know why. My joyousness changed to what storybook writers describe as a "foreboding of disaster"; but when I have it, it's generally connected with a lecture from Mother, so I know it only as a sneaky, "I haven't eaten the cream" sort of feeling.

Just as I had begun to take off my frock, Louise appeared at the door which leads into the little drawing-room. She said that if I pleased, Madame would be glad to see me in her cabin. I hurried across to the other state-room opposite ours, and there found Mrs. Ess Kay, in a gorgeously embroidered pink satin j.a.panese thing, which she calls a kimona. She was sitting in a chair in front of the makes.h.i.+ft dressing-table, putting on her rings, and clasping bracelets on her wrists with vicious snaps. Sally, who hadn't begun to dress, was standing up, looking almost cross; that is, with different features from hers, she might have succeeded in looking cross.

"Sit down, Betty, please; I want to talk to you," said Mrs. Ess Kay.

Somehow, it always makes me feel stiff when she "Betty's" me, as my old nurse says it does with your ears if you eat broad beans.

"If I do, I shall be late for dinner," said I, just as if a minute ago I hadn't been dying to pour out my news.

"Never mind dinner, my dear girl," replied Mrs. Ess Kay, with an air which I do believe she tried to copy from Mother. "What I have to say is more important than dinner. I hope what I have been hearing isn't true."

"That depends upon what it was," I retorted, disguising my pertness with a smile.

"Don't think I've been tattling," said Sally. "Whatever my faults may be, _I_ haven't a Rubber Neck."

I didn't know in the least what she meant; but afterwards she explained that if your neck is always pivoting round, to pry into other people's affairs, it is a Rubber Neck, and I shall remember the expression to tell Stan when I go home. He will like to add it to his collection of strange beasts.

Mrs. Ess Kay partly turned her back upon Sally. "The dear d.u.c.h.ess" (she always speaks of Mother in that way,) "the dear d.u.c.h.ess has entrusted you to my charge, Betty, and I don't know what I shall do if you take advantage of me by playing naughty tricks whenever I am incapacitated from chaperoning you for half an hour."

One would have thought I was a trained dog! I simply stared with saucer eyes, and she went on. "Mrs. Collingwood came in to enquire for my headache, and she told me that you have been running about begging for money to give to a common man in the steerage. I sent instantly for Sally, but she either knows, or pretends to know nothing."

I rushed into explanations, sure that when Mrs. Ess Kay understood, I should be p.r.o.nounced "not guilty." But to my surprise, her chin grew squarer and squarer, and her eyes harder and lighter, till they looked almost white.

"I don't want to be harsh," she said at last, in the tone people use when they're walking on the ragged edge of their patience, "but for the d.u.c.h.ess's sake, I must be _firm_. It was very wrong of Tommy Doremus to let you make yourself so conspicuous. This may lead to your being dreadfully misunderstood and putting yourself and all of us in a false position. The man may be a _butcher_ for all you know."

"His complexion isn't pink and white enough for a butcher's," said I.

"Besides, I thought that in America one man was as good as another."

"You were never more mistaken in your life, my dear girl; and the sooner you correct such an impression the better, or you may get into serious trouble from which I can't save you. If the steerage man isn't a butcher, he's probably a professional swimmer, and the whole thing was a _scheme_, to advertise himself. In fact, I am pretty certain from what Mrs. Collingwood said, it _was_ that. And I want you to promise me solemnly that you will _not_ go around helping to advertise the creature any more. If you say you admire such a person, people will think you're like the Matinee Girls, who wait at stage doors and run after actors."

I was so angry, that I "talked back"; and it finally ended in our relations being somewhat strained at dinner, which ruined my appet.i.te, until a peculiarly soothing iced pudding came on.

Afterwards, Mrs. Ess Kay was cool to Mr. Doremus, and would have been cold, I think, if he weren't Mrs. Van der Windt's cousin. He lounged up to our place on deck to give me the news that the Third Cla.s.s Hero (as he calls the bronze young man) refused to be Second Cla.s.s. He had asked permission to give the cabin offered him to the child whose life he had saved, and the mother.

"It's for you to say yes or no, Lady Betty," announced Mr. Doremus, "because it's your show; you set the top spinning."

"She is to have nothing more to do with the affair," Mrs. Ess Kay answered for me quickly. "She is very sorry she commenced it, and has lost the small interest she felt in the beginning. I do hope that tramp, or beggar, or whatever he is, hasn't gotten it in his conceited head that Lady Betty Bulkeley has bothered herself about his insignificant affairs, or he'll be thrusting himself upon her notice in some way which will be very disagreeable for _Me_, as her guardian."

"Well, he has sent a message of thanks to everyone concerned," said Mr.

Tommy Doremus. "I don't know whether he put Lady Betty at the top of the list or not, and if that's the way you feel about our nice little stunt, I expect it's just as well not to enquire further."

All the rest of the trip has been spoiled for me, by the hateful way in which the excitement of that day ended, and it does seem too bad, for everything might have been so nice.