Chapter 9

"You have dwelt so long on this purely immaterial objection," she sobbed, "that you have finally inoculated me with something of your own feeling and made me miserable and ashamed. I dare say, too, I have hurt Duke's pride by trying to give him a reason for your indifferent attitude, yet never having courage for the real, piffling explanation. I am mortified at my despicable weakness and I will overcome it by realizing how unworthy I am to bear Duke's honorable, unstained name, even if it is Hogg. You might as well give up, mother! If the dearest, best, most delightful man in the world loves me, I shall marry him, name and all."

"I do not regard it as settled," replied Mrs. Valentine calmly. "The young man may not think you so desirable when he learns that my refusal to accept him as a son-in-law means that he must take you without any income. Your dear father must have foreseen some such tragedy when he left all his money in my care!"

"Duke will take me without a penny!" cried Dorothea hotly. "I would stake my life on that!"

"Don't be melodramatic, Dorothea. We shall see in time. It is just possible that the young man may not be greedy, and so belie his name." This was Mrs. Valentine's last shaft as Dorothea walked out of the room with her chin in the air.

* * * * *

S.S. Diana, January 26, 1918

St. Thomas, and Charlotte Amalia, the little town for which I was named, looked so lovely when we landed early this morning that I felt a positive thrill of pride.

This halfway house of the sea, this gateway of the Caribbean, as it has been picturesquely called, seemed, as Dolly and I climbed the hills and the stone stairways, to materialize into a birthplace instead of a vague dream. A year ago, with the _Dannebrog_, the scarlet, white-crossed banner of Denmark, floating over the red Danish fortress on the water-front, I might have felt an alien, but the Stars and Stripes made me feel at home and I could only remember that my father and mother met and loved each other in this little Paradise, and that when I was born there they were the two happiest people under the sun. If they could have seen their daughter saluting the American flag so near the very spot in which she first saw the light, they would have been comforted, I am sure, instead of repining that they had both been taken away when she most needed their love and protection.

Such a view from Diana's deck as we crept into the wonderful harbor! A background of towering green hills and a dazzling blue of velvet sky and crystal sea, like that of Algiers, greeted our enchanted gaze! Like some of the coast towns of Italy, Charlotte Amalia is gay with color, and its white, red-roofed villas nestle among their luxuriant gardens and tropical foliage, standing out in a perfect riot of orange and yellow, blue and red.

Never, save in Venice, have I seen such a gorgeous array of color in a landscape.

Five hours we had in St. Thomas while the Diana put off hundreds of barrels of cement; but what with the gayly painted boats and their dark-skinned crews, the naked brown boys diving and swimming for pennies and dimes in the harbor, a walk to Bluebeard's Tower and Blackbeard's Castle, we were well amused. Particularly so was Dorothea, who disappeared from my side for a half-hour while I chatted with the captain, rejoining me in the tiny palm-bordered park near the landing.

She was glowing with happiness.

"What do you think, Charlotte?" she exclaimed. "I have a letter from Duke. Not written after we sailed, of course, for it couldn't have reached me. He bearded mother in her fortress the morning we left Washington. She was out, or said she was, but sent a note saying that I had gone on a journey and would be absent for a month. He went directly to the Winthrops for news and they told him I was with you and that if he wrote at once by special delivery he could reach the ship before it left New York dock. He sent the letter to the captain and asked him to give it to me at St. Thomas for a surprise. The captain is such a nice man, though a good deal of a tease! Mr. Winthrop was delighted to hear you were not alone. Poor Miss Winthrop has influenza and they both wish they had taken this trip. It seems they are thinking of it just a little."

"The Winthrops coming on this voyage," I exclaimed. "Impossible! They hadn't an idea of it."

"Mightn't he want to interview the governor and look at the island?"

"He hasn't time. I chose this journey instead of another so that I could interview the governor and look at the islands myself."

"Well, I dare say there's nothing in it. Duke didn't speak of it as anything settled, and he may have misunderstood, his mind being on me. May I read you the letter--I mean parts of it?"

"I shouldn't expect to hear all of it," I replied dryly.

"Yet the bits I leave out are the ones that show him as he is," she said, looking off into the grove of palms. "Duke is so conscientious that until we succeed in melting mother--that would be a good title for a story, 'Melting Mother'!--and until she sanctions an engagement he won't let himself go, even on paper. So I get only a lovely sort of 'seepage' that breaks through in spite of him!"

"Skip the seepage," I said unsympathetically, "and give the news."

She re-read the first paragraphs to herself with a good deal of dimpling and with eyes that suffused with feeling now and then, and turning the page began to read aloud:

Knowing that you were on the high seas far away from me, though safe with your charming Miss Clifford (Duke admires you extravagantly, Charlotte!), I concluded to burn my ships and have a straightforward talk with your mother, although you have repeatedly warned me that this was not the best method of approach and that only patience would win my cause. I sent up my card at the New Willard, and doubtless she would have refused to receive me, but, going from the office to one of the reception rooms to await her, I found her seated there with your Philadelphia aunt and another lady. There had evidently been confidences, so they scented trouble and took to their heels when I had been introduced to them somewhat informally as a friend of Dorothea's, my name not being mentioned.

I asked your mother, when we were left alone, if she had any objection to me other than my uneuphonious and suggestive surname.

She replied guardedly, no, or at least nothing in particular, though she might say without conceit that Dorothea might aspire to anybody, even the highest.

I cordially agreed, saying that if the male sex had any eye for beauty, charm or loveliness of character, Dorothea might marry not only anybody but everybody.

She said she thought persiflage was out of taste when the happiness of a mother's whole life was in question.

I begged pardon, but said it was necessary for me to whistle to keep my courage up, for the happiness of _my_ whole life was in question.

She said that was beside the point and her daughter's happiness must also be considered.

I remarked that her daughter, to my infinite surprise and gratitude, assured me that her happiness lay in the same direction as my own.

She vouchsafed the information that Dorothea was a romantic fool.

I denied it.

She dealt what she considered to be a body-blow by affirming that your property would not be in your hands till you were twenty-one.

I replied that I didn't care if it didn't reach you till you were a hundred and twenty-one.

She said, "Don't be silly," and asked me if I had ever thought of changing my name back to Forrest from Hogg.

I inquired in return if she would mind the loss of six thousand dollars a year, supposing that I should take such a step.

She reflected and said that she should, but she would rather lose it than take the name; and that we could rub along on Dorothea's money, she supposed, if that was my idea of a pleasant life.

I hastened to say that I would relinquish the six thousand without a pang, confident that I could make a living anyway; but that it would be disloyal to my good old uncle, whose bounty had given me a college course, two years at Oxford and three at Harvard Law School. It had also permitted me to give my services to the United States Shipping Board without compensation.

She said she thought it was very selfish in a government to accept a man's whole time and give him no remuneration; that the Secretary of the Treasury had only to say to the banks, "Let there be money," and there was money. There would be plenty for everybody if only the engravers and laborers at the Mint would not strike.

I reminded her that men were remunerated sufficiently in being allowed to serve their country in time of war.

She returned that she thought that point of view foolish and fantastic, but if she found, after a year, that her daughter's peace of mind was threatened, would I then change my name and live on Dorothea's income until I could establish myself in the practice of the law? She said that I must acknowledge that this was a ridiculously generous proposition and one that neither my talents nor my station in life merited.

I replied that the proposition meant to me that I should simply be selling myself and buying her daughter, and that I declined to accept it.

("Oh, Charlotte!" the girl interrupted with a catch in her throat, "don't you think that was splendid and clever, too?")

Your mother said that she wished to take the matter into consideration during your absence [so the letter ran on], and just as we were rising the Philadelphia aunt came in from one door and General X, Senator Y, and Lord Z from another.

They are at the moment three of the most significant figures in the moving picture of Washington society, and all women pursue them. They beamed at me as if they had been commandeered for that special purpose, and Senator Y said jovially: "How are you, Duke? Glad to see you. Are you free to dine with us?"

I hastily turned to your mother, saying: "I was just going to ask you and your sister if you would dine with me."

Lord Z, who was at Balliol with me, you remember, said: "Then perhaps you will allow us to come to your table for coffee, Hogg?" Your mother gazed at him, astounded that his noble tongue could utter the name. Then she actually and gracefully "fell" for the dinner, lured by the bait of the post-prandial coffee with the distinguished trio, and the Philadelphia aunt kept things going serenely. She is a delightful person and will be a perfect companion for your mother when--you know when--when she needs one--and I no longer do!

("There never was a man who said things like Duke!" interpolated Dolly ecstatically.)

All would have gone swimmingly to the end had not a page suddenly entered the room bawling: "Mr. Hogg wanted at the telephone: Mr. Hogg? Telephone message for Mr. HOGG!"

Only capitals can give an idea of the volume of voice. My ear-drum, grown painfully sensitive since I met your mother, echoed and reechoed with the tone as I threaded my way through the crowded room, followed by every eye, while I imagined people saying: "I wonder if he's called to the stockyard?" (It is queer, but I never felt this way in Oxford, for they still remember Hogg, the Scottish poet, and I hung myself to his revered coat-tails.)

The telephone message was from my secretary, and healed my wounded vanity, for it came from the British Embassy conveying the thanks of the Foreign Office for Mr. Hogg's friendly and helpful action in conducting negotiations for the chartering of ex-enemy ships lying in South American ports.

("You see what he is!" exclaimed Dolly, looking up from the letter with eyes full of unshed tears! "Of course he has five or six superiors in office but I suppose really that Duke's extraordinary talent keeps that whole shipping board going! You mark my words, Charlotte, when Duke gives up his position and goes to Plattsburg there'll be an absolute slump in that office! But just hear what follows; it is so discouraging!")

But when, glowing with the delight that always comes to me when I have any little tribute to lay with my love at your charming number-three feet, when I returned to my table your mother had gone to her room and the Philadelphia aunt remained to explain that she had been taken suddenly ill.

"It will all come right, Mr.--my dear boy!" she said. "My sister has one weakness, an abnormal sensitiveness to public opinion. She thinks constantly what people will say of this, that, or the other trifling thing, and in that way perpetually loses sight of the realities of life. There is a great deal of good in her that you have never seen because for the moment she is absolutely obsessed by her objection to your name and her conviction that Dorothea might and should marry a title. My sister married Reginald Valentine more for the effect on her future visiting-card than anything else, but Dorothea's father bequeathed his good looks, his sunny disposition, his charm, and his generous nature to his daughter. You have chosen wisely, my dear Mr.--boy, but not more wisely, to my mind, than Dorothea has!"

So it ended, but I somehow hope that I may have converted your mother from an enemy alien to an armed neutral!

"There is nothing more of--of--general interest," said Dolly tearfully, as she slipped the letter in the envelope. "Aunt Maggie is a trump. Oh, Charlotte! if only you had ever had a love-problem like mine and could advise me! Duke always wondered that you never married."

(Dorothea ought to be cuffed for impertinence, but she is too unconscious and too pretty and lovable for corporal punishment.)

"Perhaps there may still be hope even at thirty!" I said stiffly.

"Oh, I didn't mean that! You might have anybody by lifting your finger! We only wonder you've never lifted it! But you could be happy only with a very learned and prominent man, you are so clever!"

"I'm clever enough to prefer love to learning, if I have to choose, Dolly, my dear."

"I'm so sorry you didn't get a letter, Charlotte," said the girl, snuggling sympathetically to my side on the bench.

This was more than flesh and blood or angel could bear!

I kissed her, and, shaking her off my shoulder vigorously, I said, as I straightened my hat: "As a matter of fact, Miss Valentine, I have had a letter every day since we left New York; a letter delivered before breakfast by the steward. You have had but one, yet you are twenty and I am thirty!"

"_Charlotte!_"

"Don't add to your impudence by being too astonished, darling," I continued. "Come! let's go and pick bananas and pineapples and tamarinds and shaddocks and star-apples and sapodillas!"

"I won't budge a step till you tell me all about it!"

"Then you'll grow to this green bench and have to be cut away by your faithful Marmaduke!"

"Is it a secret?"

"It doesn't exist at all for you. You are not of age, Dolly."

"I'm old enough to know the things one can learn by heart!" was Dolly's comment.

When the Diana was leaving St. Thomas at sunset and we were well on our way to St. Croix, Dolly made a half confidence.

"You are not my chaperon, Charlotte, because in my hour of need I simply fastened myself to you like a limpet, or an albatross, or a barnacle, or any other form of nautical vampire that you prefer. Still, I might as well confess that I cabled to Duke, or wirelessed, or did something awfully expensive of that sort at St. Thomas while you were having that interminable talk with the captain, who, by the way, is married and devoted to his wife, they say."

"That was foolish and extravagant, my child," I answered. "I don't know what you said, but I have the most absolute confidence in your indiscretion. I hope you remembered that all messages are censored in war-time?"

"I did, indeed," she sighed. "I was never so hampered and handicapped in my life, but I think I have outwitted the censors. I wish I were as sure about--mother!"

* * * * *

S.S. Diana, January 26

St. Croix was delightful, with a motor-ride across the island from Frederikstad to Christianstad, where we lunched.

Dolly's mind is not in a state especially favorable for instruction, but I took a guidebook, and, sitting under a wonderful tamarind tree, read her Alexander Hamilton's well-known letter describing a West Indian hurricane, written from St. Croix in 1772.

We were with a party of Canadian acquaintances made on shipboard and greatly interested in our first visits to sugar plantations. Vast cane-fields of waving green stretched mile after mile on the right and on the left, making it seem incredible that a Food Commissioner need beg the sweet tooth to deny itself in the midst of such riotous plenty.

There was a dazzling glare from the white buildings of the town and the coral roads, but the moment we reached the outlying country all was verdant and restful. The beautiful hard roads ran like white ribbons over velvet hills and through rich valleys; tall windmills, belonging to the earlier days of sugar-making, rose picturesquely from the magnificent palms and other shade-trees; there were brilliant flowers and blossoming vines breaking through hedges here and there, and acres of pineapples and orange groves. Truly, our Canadian companions might wish us luck in our new possessions!

* * * * *

Later in the day

We have left the Virgin Islands now and at dawn we neared St. Kitts, of the Leeward group, anchoring a half-mile away from the landing and putting passengers ashore in the small boats that ranged themselves near the steamer. There was a very bedlam of chatter, argument, and recrimination among the black boatmen, mounting at times to furious invective in a patois we failed wholly to understand, for though the majority of the natives speak English on all the islands, whether Dutch, French, or British, they use a language of their own vintage on these undress occasions. I could see Dolly's bright head and laughing eyes peeping through her porthole, nodding good-morning to me as I viewed the scene from my own little stateroom opposite hers.

The St. Kitts boatmaster was a superb personage in white linen uniform and cap. He stood at the top of the steps lowered from our steamer to the ocean, and from that serene height of power commanded his clamorous and refractory legions.

It was his voice that called me irresistibly from my berth and kept my ears, as well as my eyes, glued to the porthole of my cabin. It was a deep, rich barytone, as full of color as his own native skies and sea. The white cap set off his dark skin, and a pair of eyes that shot lightnings of authority gleamed from under his vizor. He ought to have been singing the "Pagliacci" prologue at the Metropolitan Opera House, but instead he was calling resonantly (his private megaphone seemed to be located in his own throat): "_Don't crowd, Edward.... Push in, Victoria.... Get away, George.... Come nearer, come nearer, Mary.... Show your number, Albert, or meet me in court to-morrow at eleven!_"

As a matter of fact, these were the names painted on the boats crowding and jamming their way to the most favorable places for securing passengers or freight; but the quality of his voice made it seem as if, in calling Victoria, Edward, George, Mary, and Albert, he were summoning a corporeal bevy of kings and queens to do his instant bidding. The excitement reached its climax when an aged bishop descended the stairway, which was under some circumstances as perilous as a ladder. The bishop's quaint hat and gown and hood of various colors made him seem like a benign figure in comic opera; and perhaps because of his dignity or his multiplicity of luggage, all the boats ardently desired him as a passenger. Two green boxes, carrying much information painted in white on the sides, gave us all details of his rank, ancestry, and place of residence. These were projected down the stairway and then followed an imposing procession of servitors bearing potted plants, packages done up in linen cloth, baskets of eggs, limes, lemons, grapefruit, a canary in a cage, some white mice, and a Persian cat; the last three, it is needless to say, being in separate crates.

Majestic being, that St. Kitts boatmaster; never more impressive than when he successfully landed a bishop of the isles! Dolly and I recalled the "Admirable Crichton" in Barrie's whimsical play, who, as butler in a titled English family, was wrecked with the entire household on a desert island. It needed only the emergencies of twenty-four hours to establish him as the dominant intellectual force and the practical governor of the sadly inefficient earls, countesses, ladies, and honorables; and before long he assumed the authority properly belonging to him. That the earl's daughter finally fell in love with him seemed not so much dramatic license as a tribute to his obvious superiority. In London the lady would have been criticized as marrying beneath her; on the desert island it actually appeared as if she were doing particularly well for herself; indeed, Dolly confessed that though she would prefer marrying Marmaduke Hogg she would rather be wrecked in the company of the St. Kitts boatmaster.

* * * * *

S.S. Diana, Sunday, January 27

After breakfast, on our way to anchor at Antigua for the night, we saw in the distance the towering cone of Nevis, the "Gorgeous Isle" of Alexander Hamilton's birth and the famous scene of Lord Nelson's marriage. It has fallen from its proud estate of former years into poverty and neglect, but it is still marvelously beautiful to the eye. We sat on deck reading, or at least glancing drowsily over the pages of our books to the sapphire sea and the emerald forests of the island shores with a never-ceasing delight. There were three Roman Catholic priests on board, also four Protestant missionaries, one of them with a wife and a family of charming children--Samuel, Naomi, Esther, Daniel. Piously they were named and never once did they bring contempt on the Holy Scriptures! From below in a far end of the boat we could hear echoes of gospel hymns in some little cabin where a Sunday-morning service was being held.

Dorothea gave a deep sigh.

"It is all so peaceful, Charlotte! One day just like another and all beautiful and tranquil. We haven't seen anybody hurry since we left New York. Do you remember Rudyard Kipling saying, when he came back there after a long absence, that he was afraid to step slowly lest the man behind him should walk up his back? Nobody ever seems nervous in these islands. The natives can be ragged and hungry without being much concerned. Work never appears to be a delight to them for its own sake, but only as a means to get food. I feel slip--slip--slipping into a heavenly state of coma. Does anything ever stir the tropics except hurricanes and earthquakes, I wonder? How can women fight for suffrage in this climate? How can a man be awakened to great ambitions?"

"Alexander Hamilton was born on Nevis and passed all his boyhood and youthful days on what is now our own St. Croix," I said.

"Yes, but he wasn't Washington's aide-de-camp nor secretary of the treasury in the tropics!"

"True; nevertheless, when he was Nicholas Cruger's bookkeeper at the age of twelve he wrote to an American friend: 'I contemn the groveling condition of a clerk to which my fortunes condemn me, and I would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station.... My youth excludes me from any hope of immediate preferment, but I mean to prepare the way for futurity.' You see the yeast was stirring, even in the tropics, Dolly!"