Lady Betty Across the Water

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

This made me curious. Louise opened one of my boxes which had been labelled "Not Wanted," and I could hardly believe my eyes when she lifted out an exquisite poppy-coloured chiffon, embroidered with sprays of golden holly and berries made of some gleaming red jewel.

"Why, there's been some extraordinary mistake!" I exclaimed. "That can't be my box. I've no such dress."

"I know, love, but I have," said Mrs. Ess Kay, "and thanks to you, I've got it, and several others, through without paying duty. I thought you wouldn't mind, you're such a dear pet, and it's been such an accommodation. Not that I care about the money, but I do love to get the best of those Fiends at the Custom House, and I have, for once. You see, it was like this. When Louise went to the baggage room to get out some things for you, I had them put in my trunks, afterwards, and some of my dresses changed into yours, as your frocks had all been worn and mine hadn't. I told Louise to put my things down at the bottom, some in each of your trunks, and I was pretty sure the man wouldn't touch them, as you're a British subject. I trusted to luck that you'd be too 'cute to say anything and give me away, if you saw the dresses while your trunks were being examined, but I just hoped he wouldn't dig down to them. I dared not tell you what was going on, as Sally said I ought to, because if I had you might have refused, or else spoiled everything by being self-conscious. If you'd been with me, the Fiends might have caught on to our little game, they're so suspicious; but where you were, they never suspected any connection between us. You're just a Dear."

I had been a Dear in spite of myself, but there was no use in making a fuss now the Dearness was all over, whatever I might have done if I'd known beforehand that I was to be a cat's-paw. Perhaps, if I hadn't been given the iced stuff with the strawberries, I might have been crosser; but fortified by that, I lived up to my reputation as a Dear, during the half hour of the unpacking.

When my frocks all hung in a row like Bluebeard's wives, in the cedar wardrobe, and I was left alone with them at last, my first thought was to plunge my imprisoned roses in water; my second, to do the same with myself.

The hope of tea (which hadn't been fulfilled) and a bath had kept me alive through those two hot hours on the dock; and now I could choose between several kinds of bath, each one more luxurious than any I had ever known. At home there's either the big bath, in the bathroom, or there's a tub in your bedroom, so it doesn't take you long to make up your mind which you will have. But here there were so many things I could do, that I grew quite confused among them.

There was the big bath, so big that two of our big ones at Battlemead could have gone into it; and instead of climbing ignominiously in, in the ordinary way, you walked down several glittering white marble steps. It was very alluring, but as the marble tank was so vast, I feared I might have to spend all the rest of the afternoon in getting it full of water. It seemed impertinent to make a convenience of such a splendid, early Roman sort of receptacle for a mere five minutes' splash; a bath of such magnificence ought, I felt, to be what Americans call a "function"; a ceremony for which you would prepare with perfumed ointments and ambergris, and protract for half a day, at least, not to be wasteful. Then there was the vapour bath, which you took in a kind of box, with a hole for your head to stick out; a porcelain sitz bath; and a mysterious shower bath into which you secretively retired behind canvas curtains, shaped like a sentry box.

I dared not try the vapour, for fear I should be steamed, like a potato; the sitz seemed as inadequate as a thwarted ambition; and to turn on the shower without knowing how much it could do, or how soon it could be stopped, appeared a desperate adventure. After all, I thought, it was less worrying with us. Here, whichever thing you chose, you would probably wish you had had the other, whereas at home you did what you could, and were perfectly satisfied.

I decided that I would toss up a coin; heads, the big marble tank; tails, the shower. It came tails, and I had a dreadful qualm, but noblesse oblige; one must be sporting. So I was; only the hot water wouldn't come, and apparently there was ice in the cold, which wouldn't stop coming, and it was very violent. I screamed once, and Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally and Louise ran to the door, which was embarrassing; but fortunately, I'd locked it, and they told me how to stop the iced water. When it was all over, I felt like a marble statue for hours.

Dinner was at half past seven, which seemed odd in such a grand palace of a house, because, of course, at home, for some extraordinary reason unless you are in the middle classes, you never have an appetite before eight, at the very earliest. If you're in France, or other countries on the Continent, you can be hungry sooner, and evidently it is the same in America. Perhaps, if I were scientific, I should be able to classify these differences as natural phenomena.