CHAPTER III.—AMONG THE PASSENGERS.
“We are simply wanderers, Marie-Jeanne and I,” Mrs. LeRoy-Jones was saying to an interested audience of four girls. Marie-Jeanne was not present. “Simply tramps. We prefer Europe because of our aristocratic connections there, you know. We visit among the aristocracy.”
“Where?” asked Billie rather bluntly.
“My friend, the Baroness Varitzy, has a cawstle in Austria and moves in the most exclusive society. I always attend receptions at her home and am often the only untitled person present.”
Nancy rolled her blue eyes back until only the whites were visible, a trick she had when she wanted to laugh and didn’t dare. Billie looked stern, Elinor disgusted, and little Mary rather sorrowful.
“We are not rich, you know,” continued the strange woman. “Oh, dear no. We have so little, Marie-Jeanne and I. But we enjoy life. We shall visit on the estate of the Countess di Lanza this summer. She is a friend, you know, of the Archduchess Leopold Salvata, who married a nephew of the Emperor Franz Josef. The arch-duchess has just erected a new palace in Vienna which has sixty salons in it,—think of it. Entertaining in Austrian society is done on a grand scale. And I am always received everywhere because of my aristocratic connections.”
“Then you have traveled a great deal, Mrs. Le Roy-Jones?” asked Billie, trying to draw the poor woman away from her obsessions.
“Everywhere, my dear. All the fashionable resorts of Europe are familiar to us. We should be delighted to take you under our wing. Now, if there is any room in your motor for two——”
The girls exchanged horrified glances.
“What place do you consider the most beautiful you ever saw?” here interrupted Mary with quick tact.
“Porto Fino in Italy, dear. Queen Margharita calls it ‘il Paradiso.’”
Even scenery must have an aristocratic sanction before it could be considered beautiful by Mrs. Jones.
“But, dear, as I was remarking, if your motor will hold——”
“Kechew! Kechew!” Nancy was seized with a sneezing fit.
“It’s time for shuffleboard,” cried Billie. “I do wonder where the others are.”
It was a brilliant spring day and all the passengers were on deck. Miss Helen was taking a stroll with some friends. Mr. Kalisch could be seen in the distance reading a book. The other passengers were stretched in their steamer chairs or talking in groups.
“Who said shuffleboard?” called a cheerful voice, and Feargus O’Connor, his face as ruddy as the harvest moon, emerged from a passage-way nearby.
Victor Pulaski, a young Russian, followed, with several others of the younger passengers.
“We are all here except Marie-Jeanne,” observed Billie, determined to draw the forlorn young girl into their pleasures.
“My daughter is not well. She is in her stateroom,” put in Mrs. Jones.
The deck was marked and the game soon in full swing. Mary Price slipped away and went down to the Jones’ stateroom, which was one of the less expensive kind somewhere in the depths of the ship. There were no second cabin passengers on board.
Mary tapped timidly on the door, which was flung open almost instantly by Marie-Jeanne herself. There was a flush on her cheeks and she looked almost pretty for the first time since Mary had known her.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “I thought you were the stewardess. Does mother want me?”
“Oh, no,” answered Mary. “I came down to see how you were. Your mother said you were not well.”
Marie-Jeanne’s face flushed angrily.
“I am quite——” she began, and interrupted herself with a hopeless little gesture. “It was sweet of you to come down. I’m not used to such attentions. You see, I’m doing housework,—washing clothes this morning.”
Mary slipped her arm around the other’s waist.
“I believe you are happier when you are working, Marie-Jeanne,” she said.
“I am, indeed. I would rather live in two rooms and cook in one of them, than stay at the best pension in all Europe. Oh, Mary, have you got a home?”
“Yes,” replied Mary. “My mother and I have to work to keep it, but we have one.”
“Oh, how I love to work,” cried Marie-Jeanne.
She then proceeded to take six handkerchiefs from an improvised clothes line hung across the stateroom. She sprinkled them with a little water, rolled them in a neat pile, and with quite a professional manner, tested a little iron heating on an alcohol stove.
“Would you like to see me iron?” she demanded. “I do the family wash in this way. It saves lots of money, and, well,—it quiets me.”
“Quiets you?”
“Yes; you see, sometimes I have a feeling I’d like to scream or break something, and when that comes on me, I just turn all the linen out of the clothes bag and wash clothes until I’m tired out.”
“What a funny girl you are,” laughed Mary. “Do you spend all your time abroad?” she added.
“Most of it. We only go back when——” the poor girl paused and wrinkled her brows, “when we have to,” she finished in a low voice. “But there is something I like better than washing, Mary,” she went on gayly. “You would never guess that it’s cooking. I have learned to make a great many dishes. I am sure I could cook an entire dinner with soup and roasted chicken and peas and potatoes and something awfully good for dessert. I know several desserts. Sometimes we take lodgings,—mamma detests them, but—well, sometimes we have to, and then I cook, oh, such good things! We are going into lodgings this time in London for a few weeks, and I shall be very busy. Perhaps you would come——” she paused. “No, mother would never consent to it. We never receive any visitors when we are in lodgings.”
Marie-Jeanne sighed. Mary thought of the difference between Marie-Jeanne’s “mamma” and her own beautiful mother, who worked so hard and was so dignified and noble. Her heart went out to the poor girl and she determined to make a friend of her if possible.
“Why don’t you come on deck, Marie-Jeanne? Do stop work now. It’s almost lunch time.”
Marie-Jeanne extinguished the alcohol lamp and prepared to follow her friend aloft.
“I never had a friend before, Mary,” she exclaimed, locking her arm shyly into the other’s.
On deck a fresh wind had sprung up and every little wave wore a whitecap. The spray blew into their faces, tossed their loose locks and blew their skirts out like balloons. A game of “catcher” was going on, and the two girls were greeted with cries of joyous laughter and shouts of merriment. Telemac Kalisch was “old man” and he was chasing the others. Little Arthur was in the game and his shrill cries rang above the others’. He was a nimble child and had just slipped through Telemac’s hands, when a man rushed from the salon and hurried down the deck. He had a thin, cadaverous face with a beaked nose, and he wore enormous horn spectacles. His chin was slightly receding and he had weak, pale eyes.
He paused in front of Billie, who happened to be running hand in hand with Arthur at the moment.
“I beg your pardon,” he said angrily, “but are you aware that you happen to be endangering the life of a human being by your mad behavior?”
Billie flushed hotly.
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
“Do you wish to be a murderess, young woman?” he exclaimed in a furious voice. “Has it not been made sufficiently clear to you that a certain person who shall be nameless is the victim of a terrible disease which affects his heart, and one dash up and down this deck might do him forever?”
Billie was silent. She had never been nearer bursting into tears in her life than at that moment, and not for worlds would she have trusted her voice before this brutal Englishman.
“I cannot imagine where the tutors are,” exclaimed the man, who was Arthur’s physician, F. Benton, M. D.
The others had gathered curiously around her and Billie felt that she was the center of an embarrassing episode. She wished that some one would defend her, and she was grateful to Mr. Kalisch for breaking into the conversation.
“If you blame any one, blame me and not a young girl,” said Telemac. “I am entirely responsible for the game.” The doctor gave him a contemptuous glance. “I do not agree with you. The individual you speak of, who shall be nameless, is not troubled with a disease in any way. He was perfectly well a moment ago. If you wish to make him the victim of any such absurd notions, you must have extremely good reasons of your own.”
The two men eyed each other coldly. Then Billie, who had been so brutally treated, was emboldened to speak.
“Little Arthur is perfectly well. Look at him. His cheeks are bright and he is happier than he has been since the ship sailed.”
“On the contrary, young woman——”
“Young woman, indeed!” exclaimed Nancy.
The idea of addressing her friend as “young woman.” It made her blood boil!
“—the color in his cheeks is an unnatural flush caused by over-excitement. The person I speak of suffers from valvular heart trouble, and if the blood is pumped too fast, I could not answer for his life. Violent exercise is one of the things forbidden him, and it remains for a party of Americans to draw him into this dangerous and absurd game. I have charge of this boy and I forbid you to speak to him again. How do you feel, child? A little weak, here, eh?” he continued, placing his hand on the left side, over his heart.
“No, here,” said Arthur irritably, placing his hand on the right side.
Telemac smiled.
“Evidently not heart trouble,” he said.
“Shall I carry you to your stateroom, Arthur?” asked the doctor.
“If you please, doctor. I am sorry I can’t play with you any longer, Telemac. I am very delicate, you know. I must be so careful. The doctors never let me run and romp.”
The doctor lifted the child into his arms. The little face was quite pale and melancholy again, and as he waved with his thin, small hand a feeble good-by, he looked so ill and exhausted that the girls were almost convinced.
“Stuff and nonsense,” exclaimed Telemac. “I should like to wring that ignorant fellow’s neck for putting such ideas into the child’s head! He’s a dear little fellow, too.”
“Think how I feel,” cried Billie. “A murderess! My goodness!”
There was a bugle call for lunch, and the young people, whose spirits had been temporarily quenched by the sour-faced doctor, hastened into the dining-room.