Part 6

Amid the patter of applause Miss Winstanley abruptly arose from the piano, and said she was going out to get a breath of air. There were protestations, but only the host, who looked at her with bleared, enraptured eyes, ventured to ask her to sing again. Then, Mr. Vereker finding his proposition for Lillian Russell's latest success unheeded, allowed the departure of his star, rejecting all offers of companionship, to be the signal for breaking up the affair.

Everybody scattered, the men to the smoking-room, the ladies to their cabins. Helen Carstairs, with her maid in attendance, came back almost immediately, and stood for a moment hesitating in the companion-way of the deck where she had last seen Posey. Here she encountered Clandonald, who, like herself, seemed to be at a loss.

"I am undertaking a formidable task," she said. "To look for a missing person in this ship; but have you chanced to see Miss Winstanley anywhere?"

She saw that his face was clouded, his calm ruffled.

"I myself have been on the same search," he said, brusquely. "But we may as well spare our pains. The young lady in question appears to be at present under charge of Mr. Vereker."

Helen had but time to let her face show the annoyance of her feelings, when out of the clear obscure of the deck beyond, against a background of sky "patined with such bright stars" as never Shakespeare saw, came to them a flying figure. It was Posey, flushed with angry blood, and after her limped their host of the evening, his spectral face wreathed in apologetic smiles.

"Oh! please, Miss Carstairs, may I stay with you?" exclaimed the girl with quivering lips, in her agitation putting herself between Helen and Clandonald, who involuntarily interposed his stalwart form so that none else could approach her. "I didn't realize how late it was when I went out to be by myself in the fresh air."

"Miss Winstanley is just a _leetle_ nervous after her triumphs of to-night," began Mr. Vereker, who had come up with them--smoothly, but ill at ease.

"I am not nervous. I never was in my life," cried the girl, stamping her foot. "It is because--because----"

She ended in a burst of passionate tears.

"Let me go with you to your room," said Helen, gently. "I had wanted to ask you for a little walk, but it is late now, and the deck people are for putting us all to bed."

"High-strung little filly, and green; green as grass," observed Mr. Vereker to Clandonald, as Miss Carstairs disappeared, leading Posey down the corridor. "If you're up to a little poker in the smoking-room, I can tell you a thing or two about our bewitching girl from Dixieland that will amuse you greatly."

"You will excuse me," answered Clandonald, with lightning in his gaze. Mariol, passing in at the moment, saw Vereker shrivel under it and disappear. Clandonald gave his friend a clue to the situation.

"If you had followed your impulse and punched the old sinner's head," commented Mariol, "it might have been a poor return for his hospitality, but a mighty relief to you. However, we can safely leave him to the gods for punishment. He will probably go under to-morrow, with one of his attacks, because he drank champagne for supper. I understand that a trained nurse for him makes part of the Verekers' travelling suite. He will become a horrid elderly infant in her hands. I am glad Miss Carstairs came to the relief. I hope you noticed that fine movement of hers to check the exuberance of the younger girl? I had no time to put your suggestion to enlist her into effect before the thing occurred. And now----"

"Now, I think we may count upon our day all together at Beaumanoir. But till then, and after it, Mariol, I mean to keep my distance from Miss Winstanley."

"The trouble was that you began doing it too suddenly. From the moment she caught sight of your glum countenance at supper the sparkle went out of things for her. But, _bon Dieu_, what a gift she has, that untrained creature! Somebody ought to take charge of her musical education, and in a few years she would witch the world."

"There is something better for a pure, straightforward being like that to do than to witch the world behind footlights," said Clandonald doggedly. "I can't think of it for her."

"My advice to you is to get off at Queenstown," answered Mariol as they separated for the night.

"You are not sleepy? That's good, for I'm not, either, and I'll just send away Eulalie, and we'll go into my room and talk."

Posey's heart lightened with pleasure as she followed Miss Carstairs inside the pretty bower Eulalie's skill had contrived from her young lady's belongings for the voyage. What a contrast to the half of a dull inside cabin which Mr. Winstanley, in his simplicity, had accepted for Posey from the agent of whom he had purchased places; with the spinster room-mate humped under the bedclothes on the sofa; her clothes and hats hanging overhead distractedly; their steamer trunks and bags encumbering the narrow space between hers and Posey's berths!

Here were unimagined comforts, order, nicety, a little brass bed with flowery curtains, softest pillows and duvets, a bath room opening out, with porcelain tub; an equipment for the toilet that astounded Posey, till then content with her little cotton night-gown trimmed with tatting, her kimono of cheap blue flannel bought ready-made, her one brush and comb, and tooth-brush, and bottle of Sozodont, her knitted slippers, and the steamer-pocket of blue denim with the motto "Bon voyage," presented to her on leaving Alison's Cross Roads by her friend the dressmaker! But she showed no more surprise than an Indian does on his first visit to the glories of the White Father at Washington. Truth to tell, she had already arrived at the stage of development where things tangible have become of secondary importance to feelings and emotions. She had passed, that evening, through so many varying phases of mental experience, that Helen Carstairs' new kindness seemed the opening of the gate of Heaven.

"Now if you feel like it, and think it will do you good," said Helen, installing her in a cushioned chair of Madeira wicker-work, and, herself, perching school-girl fashion on the settee, "you must tell me what troubled you, though I think I can guess."

"He tried to kiss me, that hateful old mummy that I've done nothing but make fun of on the voyage," cried the girl, fiery blushes streaming into her face. "If he hadn't said such fool-words when he did it, I might have thought he was just like old Grandfather Billings of our town, that always dodders along in the sunshine and kisses the girls when they stop to speak to him, thinking they're their own grandmothers. But even Grandfather Billings has never kissed me. I hate it, and never would put up with it from a living soul, so when old Vereker tried it on, I boxed his ears, and boxed to hurt, too, and then I ran away. What business had he following me out on deck, anyway, when I'd said I wanted to be by myself? If daddy knew--but he shan't know, he's too good to trouble, and I reckon I can take care of myself."

She ended bravely, but one glance into Helen's grave, kind face sent her again into tears.

"Oh! Miss Carstairs, don't mind me. Let me be a little while, and I'll promise not to bother you again. After you looked at me that time at supper, I seemed to shrink up into such a poor pretending creature. I saw in a flash how cheaply I'd been 'showing off.' It was mostly to make those people that looked down on me sit up on their hind legs, anyway! I felt common and half-bred beside you, whom I'd been trying so hard to imitate since we came aboard. I do want to be a lady, your kind, I do, I do. Not only for my own sake, and my mother's, who was a real one, but because--if you only knew----"

"I am ready to know," said Helen, after a pause, her voice, in spite of her, curiously flattened.

"I am engaged to marry a man, to whom it will mean everything that I shall be, let me say, all you are. And there's a great reason why I should try to please him in those things. How strange that I should want to tell you such an intimate secret, out of my very heart! But there is no other woman I can talk to, and that look you gave me seemed to open every door within me!"

"I will help you if I can," Helen breathed, rather than spoke. Her spirit, wrestling with the certainty that crushed it, was yet ready to rise to generosity. Was it not what she had bid John Glynn do in the moment of his acutest suffering? Find a younger, fresher, more trustful life-partner than herself, and put swiftly out of mind their disastrous venture together that could not end in happiness! What right had she to be feeling these fierce heart-beats of rebellion against the child's superior claim upon him, these desperate yearnings to have him back again?

"I am ashamed to let you know what will make you think even less of me than you do. When I promised myself to John Glynn--there I've told you his name, but it doesn't matter--I did so because I thought it would make my dear daddy, who was in some sort his guardian and his father's best friend--happier than anything in the world. Also, I was flattered that he should ask me. Down at Alison's, where John lived as a boy, they think he has taken the head of his firm into business with him, and that all New York looks on admiringly. He's about the greatest hero we have after Lee and Davis. He's a splendid man, Miss Carstairs, perhaps you _have_ heard of him? I remember now, daddy said Mr. Carstairs had spoken well of John. When that Lady Channel Fleet had the cheek to say at supper, she considered the American men, as a rule, inferior to their women, and decidedly so to Englishmen, I could have flown at her, and asked her to wait till she'd seen John."

Helen, conscious that something of the same mental protest had formulated itself in her during the same period of provocation, could not forbear a smile. Fortunately, Miss Winstanley, being fairly launched upon her confidence, did not pause for answer or comment.

"You will see, then, that I do honestly mean to be what I ought, to John--that--I have no other wish or fancy--and yet there is another influence that's come without my seeking--one that could not bring me happiness. It frightens me to think of it. I don't know what to do, where to turn. Think of putting the thing of a day and hour against the other, the safe one, the true one! Yes, it frightens me. Miss Carstairs, you are older and wiser than I, tell me what I shall do to conquer it?"

All the voices in Helen's heart sang in chorus, in answer to this simple and pathetic appeal. The voice of joy, the voice of temptation were louder for awhile than the others, but she dared not let them prevail. She had never been a demonstrative person, and the touching of strangers, under no matter what stress of sympathy, was an impossibility to her. She did not, therefore, "lock Posey in a warm embrace" and "kiss her upon the virgin brow," bidding her be of good cheer, as all would yet be well between John Glynn and herself. But she told her, calmly and dispassionately, that it is probable no girl ever grew up to womanhood to escape some errant fancy for a man whom she afterwards thanked God she had not been allowed by Destiny or her parents to marry. She counselled her to indulge in no dreams or reveries or self-questionings about the matter, but to keep to the pledge she had made, and give all her energies to the task of making a good man happy.

Posey brightened wonderfully during Miss Carstairs' little lecture. As she ran off to bed, it was with the joyful step of a freed school-girl and the feeling that she was not altogether steeped in wickedness. Half-way down the corridor, she turned, ran back, and ventured to knock again at Miss Carstairs' door. Her errand was the very feminine one of asking Helen to be so good as to undo "two wretched hooks" in the region of her shoulder-blades; a service she knew Mrs. Gasher would never at that late hour be awake to perform for her. When Miss Carstairs opened the door, standing in the aperture in some surprise to know what was wanted, Posey felt sorry and puzzled to see that her new friend's eyes were filled with tears.

As Miss Winstanley, finally relieved from the apprehension of having to spend the night in a cuirass of white voile with many little pipings of satin and a good deal of scratchy net, crept in like a thief at her own cabin-door, her room-mate roused up and groaned dismally.

"Seems to me I'm to have not a wink of sleep to-night. Just as I'd settled down for my first nap, there came a stupid steward with a note for you. I told him to put it in your berth and go out as quick as he could, and since then I haven't closed my eyes."

"Thank you. I'm sorry you are not resting well," said Posey, still under the influence of her recent gentle mood. "Is it anything you've eaten, do you think?"

"Eaten? I never eat at sea," sniffed the sufferer. "It's my nerves, as usual, and since you've roused me up completely, I'll thank you to mix me another trional powder, and not to turn up the light. While you're about it, you may's well step outside and get my rug off the rail, and put it over my poor feet. Blocks of ice they are, cold feet are constitutional in our family. Humph! Single fold, not double, I don't want to smother. I should think your father'd know better than to let a girl like you go traipsing around a ship alone at this hour of the night. Perhaps, if you'd heard what I did, since I've been lying here trying to count sheep and say the ten table, you'd haul in your horns a bit, and not think yourself such a museum wonder. The people in the next room were talking about you, and I heard the man say as plain as anything: 'If I wanted my daughter to keep her good name, I'd not let her go out on deck at night with that gay old bird, Tom Vereker.' And the woman answered: 'Some people's heads are so turned with vanity and fine company, they don't take ordinary care. It's the talk of all the decks how she's laying herself out to catch that disreputable lord, and he and his French friend calling her "dead easy sport," in the smoking-room.'"

"Did any one say that such words had been actually used about me by either of those gentlemen?" asked Posey, stopping short, her eyes blazing in the dark.

"How do I know all that's said, lying here a wretched victim of nerves, and nobody caring if I live or die?"

"I ask you, only, was it stated that either of those gentlemen said anything approaching to those words of me?"

"For goodness' sake, speak lower, Miss Winstanley, you'll be overheard. Some people have no consideration for others, especially girls at night, when people are trying to fall asleep. If there's a race I consider utterly heartless, it is girls."

"I am not going to let you sleep or rest," went on the avenger, calmly taking off her hat, "till you answer my question in plain words--yes or no."

"N-o-o. I don't know that it was actually _said_, but the lady inferred that Lord Clandonald and his friend couldn't _think_ anything else, if you continued to give yourself away, as you've been doing."

"Very well! I understand. And, since we are due at Queenstown day after to-morrow, I shall ask you to oblige me by not addressing to me a syllable, good, bad or indifferent, so long as I have the misfortune to remain your room-mate. If we collide with something, and go down, don't even inquire of me where the life-preservers are. And now, since I want to read my note, I mean to turn on the electricity and do so comfortably, and you may wake or sleep, or go on inventing spiteful fables, whichever you prefer. From this moment, I am done with you."

Certainly, Posey knew how to take care of herself. But there was always a swift following of regret and penitence when she had let her clever tongue loose upon an opponent, and while the subdued spinster sobbed under her bedclothes, the girl rather miserably opened one of the ship's envelopes, to find, written upon a slip of paper, in an angular and illegible, but educated, woman's hand these words:

"When next you invite a certain friend of yours to supply you with frocks and hats, take care that it is not within hearing of one who is well acquainted with Lord C----'s limited generosity to the reigning fancy of the hour. Better fix your hopes upon the older and more solvent of your swains. It will pay well, and be a less dangerous game for you."

As the insult burned upon the girl's understanding, it seemed to her that the world must stop revolving then and there. It was her first experience of the poison of anonymous correspondence, that, in an instant, ran through her veins, paralyzing her with shame and humiliation. How could she face daylight and the society of honest folk, with a stain of such suspicion upon her? What had she brought upon her honored father, upon her trustful lover, by exposing herself to such an imputation? Would Helen Carstairs ever speak to her again, if she knew what had been thought and said of Posey Winstanley?

She turned out the light, and cast herself upon her berth. Now, over the tumult of her self-flagellations, arose the actual sound of a mighty wind arising to bear down upon the ship. It had come up suddenly, their room was upon the weather-side, and, in her already nervous state, the sounds seemed the shrieking of all the demons chained in hell. While the spinster, now avenged, snored peacefully through the tumult of elements outside, Posey lay wide-eyed, trembling, imagining all horrors of the sea, and praying for the comfort of Mrs. Gasher's friendly voice.

"If we are to be lost," passed through her mind, despairingly, "everything will be forgotten that has been said of me, and it is better so." She longed to go to her father, but dared not, considering his distance from her, and the unpleasant fact that he shared a stateroom with two other men. The silence of the ship seemed as unnatural as the failure of increase in its motion. The curtain drawn over their doorway swayed ever so slightly back and forth, there was no creaking of timbers or crash of crockery, or rolling of small objects upon the floor. A glass of water left on the washhand-stand was not disturbed in its equilibrium. Surely this was strange, weird, unnatural, with such a tempest raging on the sea!

Now Posey decided that, on the whole, she did not wish to die. Driven by panic, she arose, still dressed as she had been for the supper, and stole out down the long, empty passage-ways upon a tour of investigation, to encounter no living soul save a sleepy night-steward standing under a light, to con an ancient newspaper.

The man looked up sleepily as the unwonted apparition drew near him. He recognized the beauty, and from her pallor and agitation decided she must be ill.

"Anything I can do for you, miss?" he asked politely.

"Oh! no. Nothing whatever," answered Posey hurriedly. "I was only not sleeping well, and feeling a little nervous in the storm."

"Storm, miss?" queried the steward abstractedly, swallowing a yawn.

"Yes, a fearful one. On our side, it blows like mad. Surely you must hear it?"

With the ghost of a smile hovering upon his face, the man walked over and gave a look out into the night.

"It _might_ be half a gale," he said dubiously. "But you see, miss, in these ships we sort o' get out o' the way of knowing what is going on outside!"

Half a gale! Posey's inclination to resent the belittling statement went back to bed with her, but presently her sense of humor got the better of the other poignant emotions, and she laughed at her own alarms, of which the interruption had, on the whole, proved a wholesome one; and at last, completely wearied out, fell into deep sleep, amid the continued howling of the harmless wind.

The gay voyage that had begun so buoyantly passed, at the finish, beneath the shadow of a cloud. The first sight of land gave but a sorry welcome to the new-comers, as it immediately disappeared under a dense curtain of fog. The ship crept up the Irish coast to the melancholy tooting of the siren, answered by other craft, from ocean liners to humble trawlers, made Queenstown toward morning in an interval of clear weather, and, relapsing into the embrace of fog, came next evening finally to anchor for the night at some distance from Liverpool to await a safer opportunity of docking the monster, and letting her passengers ashore. During the dolorous hours preceding their final parting the disappointed passengers, before so friendly, smiling, intimate, seemed to draw away from each other, darkling and afraid. Smiles, jokes, good stories, civil speeches and compliments had been apparently packed up with sea rugs and steamer chairs. The decks, dripping and cheerless, offered no attraction to promenaders, the library was filled to oppression with forms bending listlessly over books that could not hold attention. Every desk held diligent scribblers, glaring suspiciously at each other through the top of the separating screen, their places awaited by more would-be correspondents impatient of delay. In the companion-ways, subdued people huddled together or walked over the unfortunate beings with buckets whose duty it is to swab the sticky linoleum underfoot. A reminiscent odor of their last sea-dinner arose to mingle with suggestions, coming none knew whence, of bilge, fresh paint, tarpaulin and wet ropes. The only thoroughly lively mortals to be seen were the stewards bustling everywhere; the tidy stewardesses, with their cap-streamers flying; and the ladies' maids and valets who hoped to get their charges early to bed, thus advancing their own time of freedom and farewell.

At a comparatively early hour, the usual spaces where passengers assemble were deserted, most people giving up the pretence of being exhilarated by near approach to the British Isles. The dining-saloon displayed still a few groups sitting around the tables sipping from glasses, reading or talking; the smoking-room alone retained its usual features of cards and conviviality.

Here, toward ten o'clock, Clandonald, looking more than commonly bored, arose from a game in which he had not acquitted himself with brilliancy, and strolled outside, alone.

Since the night of the supper, he had not been called upon to put into effect his stern resolution of eschewing Miss Winstanley's society. She had come to her meals late, or early, contriving to avoid more than a passing contact with her acquaintances at table. While the rest of them, notably Bobby Vane, deplored this circumstance, attributing it to a caprice or an indisposition; while Miss Bleecker secretly chuckled with delight that the enemy had so soon struck her colors, and Helen wondered in silence why there was no following up on Posey's part of the promising beginning of a friendship between them; while even the astute Mariol was nonplussed at the young girl's sudden drop in spirit and voluntary abdication of her past as reigning sovereign, Clandonald felt himself a prey to more acute and genuine feeling concerning her than he had ever dreamed of experiencing. So far from going ashore at Queenstown, it was now his ardent wish to stay on the ship till he saw the last of Miss Winstanley at Liverpool; since Mr. Winstanley had announced that instead of running up to town on the special steamer train with their friends, his daughter had taken a fancy to see Wales, and they would accordingly stop over at Chester.