Lady Betty Across the Water. C. N. Williamson
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to help you keep your end up, Kid, in case you're imposed on," said he. "You are only a kid, you know; but all the same, don't let them treat you like one, and if you get the hump over there, just you cable me. I'll see you through, and have you back again with your own sort, Mater or no Mater, hanged if I don't."
Stan never made me such a long speech before, and after we sailed and I got time to look at the fat thing he'd put in my hand, I found it was a lot of goldpieces bundled up in two ten-pound notes. The gold made twelve sovereigns more, so Stan had given me altogether more than thirty pounds. All that money, with the twenty pounds Mother had told me to use only "when strictly necessary," made me feel a regular millionaire. I've never had a sixth part as much before, in my life.
Stan's kindness was just like a cup of something warm and comforting when you're tired and cold, so that I began to brighten up and feel happy.
I liked our suite, with two staterooms, a bath, and a dear little white-and-blue drawing-room, about as big as the old dolls' house I inherited from Vic. I was thankful to find I was to chum with Miss Woodburn, not Mrs. Ess Kay, for I never could have stood that. It was fun finding places to hang up our things when they were unpacked, and Mrs. Ess Kay's French maid, Louise, helped me get settled, paying me so many compliments on my hair, and my eyes and my complexion, that I grew quite confused; but perhaps that's a habit in which American ladies encourage their maids.
"But the marvel that is Miladi's hair! It is of the colour of gold, and with a natural curl. It will be so great a joy if I may dress it. And her complexion! It is beyond that of any English demoiselle I have seen, yet all the world knows they are the best on earth. With such eyes, no doubt Miladi can wear any colour; and she has the figure for which the make of corsets is of no import."
If it had been in English, I should have wanted to order her out of the room; but things like that don't sound so objectionable in French.
Miss Woodburn's, and especially Mrs. Ess Kay's clothes looked so exquisite that I was mortified to have Louise unpack mine, though I have brought my smartest things, and Vic had two or three pretty blouses of hers altered in a great hurry, for me. Besides, Mother said my outfit was quite good enough for a young girl in England, and that I was not to let myself feel dissatisfied if in another country they chose to overdress.
Anyhow, I will say for Mrs. Ess Kay that she didn't appear to be ashamed of me at first. On the contrary, she had a way of seeming to show me off, almost as if she thought I did her credit.
When we had unpacked, we three went to luncheon, and took the first seats which were vacant. But presently Mrs. Ess Kay sent for the chief steward or someone important. "I am Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox," said she, in a haughty voice, "and I have as my guest Lady Betty Bulkeley, daughter of the Duchess of Stanforth. You must give me three of the best seats at the Captain's table."
I couldn't help hearing, and my ears did tingle, but Miss Woodburn only smiled and looked down, with a funny twinkle under her eyelashes, which curl up so much that it always seems as if she were just going to laugh.
I thought, if I were the steward, I would give us the worst seats on the ship, to teach us not to be proud; but he didn't do anything of the sort; he was as meek as a lamb, so I'm sure he can't have any sense of humour. He said Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox might count on him, and she and her party should have places on the Captain's right hand.
Mrs. Ess Kay was as bad with the deck steward. She found that he hadn't put our chairs (which she had brought on board herself) in the right place, and she had him called up and made a great fuss. The cards of a Reverend Somebody, his wife and daughters, were on chairs in the position which she had made up her mind to have, exactly amidship and on the shady side.
"I must have my chairs changed and put here," she said. And then—oh, horror!—I'm certain I caught her repeating the formula she'd used at luncheon. "I am Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox, and I have as my guest, etc, etc." To be sure, she had walked off to a little distance with the deck-steward, where our chairs were, and I might have been mistaken; but two or three people who were standing near looked suddenly very hard at me, and I know I turned scarlet with annoyance, to be labelled in that way, as if I were a parcel marked "glass" and to be handled with care.
Afterwards, when I came to read the passenger-list, I found that there was nobody else on board with any sort of title, not even an Honourable Anybody; otherwise, of course, Mrs. Ess Kay's little manœuvre (which I'm afraid must have been meant for snobbishness) wouldn't have excited the slightest notice.
"Now," said Mrs. Ess Kay, when we were settled in our places, "I know a good many people on the ship, but most of them are Nobodies, and I do not intend to be troubled with them, nor do I think that the Duchess would care to have me let Betty mix herself up with anybody and everybody. I shall do a great deal of weeding and select her acquaintances carefully."
"Betty," indeed! I'd never told her that she might call me Betty; and I hate having persons I don't care for take hold of my name, without using a handle to touch it. It makes me feel as I did when I was a child, and Mother commanded me to let myself be kissed by unkissable and extraneous grown-ups.
Thank goodness, Vic and I have come into the world with something of poor Father's sense of humour. My share often serves me as well as balm on a wound, or as a nice, dry, crackly little biscuit which you're enchanted to find when you're hungry, and thought you had nothing to eat; and I got a good deal of quiet comfort out of it during Mrs. Ess Kay's "weeding" process, which otherwise would have done nothing but make me squirm.
When we had been on deck for a short time, a number of people came up to speak to Mrs. Ess Kay, and some to Miss Woodburn. The water was as smooth as the floor of a ballroom when it's been well waxed for a dance, and there was no excuse for the most sensitive person to be ill; consequently the deck was something like a kaleidoscope, with all its moving groups of men and women, girls and children. Most of the best-looking and best-dressed ones were Americans, and a great many seemed to know each other. Some of them laughed a good deal, and talked in high voices, putting emphasis on prepositions, which Miss Mackinstry and the others would never let me do in writing compositions. Somehow, though, when these people spoke it sounded very nice and cordial, more so than it does when English people greet each other, though the voices weren't so sweet—except a few that drawled in a pretty, Southern way, like Sally Woodburn's.
I could tell which were the poor things that Mrs. Ess Kay wanted to weed out of her acquaintance-garden for next season, by the way she acted when they came to say "How do you do?" to her. She screwed up her eyes till they looked hard and sharp enough to go through you like a thin knife—(or more like a long, slender hatpin jabbing your head), and having waited an instant before returning their greeting, slowly answered; "Very well, thank you. Yes, I am going home rather early. I'm due at Newport as soon as possible"; then fingered her open book (which she hadn't peeped into before) and made a little, just noticeable gesture with her lorgnette.
Then the poor people were too much crushed to stop and try to talk to Miss Woodburn, though she always looked at them sweetly, as if she would make up for her cousin being a dragon if she could.
By and by, somebody else would sail up, perhaps not half as nice to look at as the one who had gone. But lo, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox would be suddenly transformed. She would smile, and hold out her hand. To their "How do you do?" she would respond "How do you do?" and though I don't think she's really much interested in anyone but herself, she would ask where they had been, what they had been doing, and how it happened they were going back so soon. The next thing, she would say to me: "Betty, dear, I should like you and Mrs. or Mr. So-and-So to know each other, as I hope you'll meet again, while you're staying with me. Lady Betty Bulkeley, etc., etc. I wonder if you have ever met her brother, the Duke of Stanforth, and her cousin, the Marquis of Loveland, over in London?"
Loveland would have had a fit if he could have heard her, for, of course, at home only the lower middle classes and such people hurl a Marquis's title at his head in that fashion; but I suppose foreigners, unless they've been in England a long time, don't know the difference.
When I got a chance, I asked Sally Woodburn how Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox made