There was much more in the same strain, and Bertha laughed over it, but felt a pang for which she hated herself every time she looked at Louie, whose beauty and grace drew about her many admirers besides Rex, in spite of her black dress and her frequent allusions to “dear Fred, whose grave was so far away.” She was growing stronger every day, and when in December Rex received a letter from his partner saying that his presence in New York was rather necessary, she declared herself equal to the journey, and said that if Rex went she should go too. Consequently the 1st of January found them all in London, where they were to spend a few days, and where Rex brought his aunt a letter, addressed, bottom side up, to “Mrs. Lucy Ann Hallam, Care of Brown, Shipley & Co., London. Post Restant.”
There was a gleam of humor in Rex’s eyes as he handed the missive to his aunt, whose face grew dark as she studied the outside, and darker still at the inside, which was wonderful in composition and orthography. Phineas Jones had been sent out to Scotland by an old man who had some property there and who knew he could trust Phineas to look after it and bring him back the rental, which he had found it hard to collect. After transacting his business, Phineas had decided to travel a little and “get cultivated up, so that his cousin Lucy Ann shouldn’t be ashamed of him.” Had he known where she was, he would have joined her, but, as he did not he wrote her a letter, which had in it a great deal about Sturbridge and the old yellow house and the huckleberry pasture and the circus and the spelling-school, all of which filled Mrs. Hallam with disgust. She was his only blood kin extant, he said, and he yearned to see her, but supposed he must wait till she was back in New York, when he should pay his respects to her at once. And she wouldn’t be ashamed of him, either. He knew what was what, and had hob-a-nobbed with nobility, who took a sight of notice of him. He was going to sail the 10th in the Germanic, he said, and if she’d let him know when she was coming home he’d be in New York on the wharf to meet her.
As it chanced, the Germanic was the boat in which the Hallam party had taken passage for the 10th, but Mrs. Hallam suddenly discovered that she had not seen enough of London; Rex could go, if he must, but she should wait for the next boat of the same line. Rex had no suspicion as to the real reason for her change of mind, and, as a week or two could make but little difference in the business calling him home, he stayed, and when the next boat of the White Star line sailed out of the docks of Liverpool it carried the party of four: Louie, limp and tearful as she thought of her husband who had been with her when she crossed before; Mrs. Hallam, excited and nervous, half expecting to see Phineas pounce upon her, and haunted with a presentiment that he was somewhere on the ship; and Rex, with Bertha, hunting for the spot where he had first seen her and knocked her down.
CHAPTER XVII.
ON THE SEA.
It was splendid weather for a few days, and no one thought of being sea-sick, except Mrs. Hallam, who kept her room, partly because she thought she must, and partly because she could not shake off the feeling that Phineas was on board. She had read the few names on the passenger-list, but his was not among them, nor did she expect to find it, as he had sailed two weeks before. Still, she would neither go on deck nor into the dining-saloon, and without being really ill, kept her berth and was waited upon by Eloïse, who was accompanying her home. Louie, who was still delicate and who always shrank from cold, stayed mostly in the salon. But the briny, bracing sea air suited Bertha, and for several hours each day she walked the deck with Rex, whose arm was sometimes thrown around her when the ship gave a great lurch, or when on turning a corner they met the wind full in their faces. Then there were the moonlight nights, when the air was full of frost and the waves were like burnished silver, and in her sealskin coat and cap, which Louie had bought for her in Geneva, Bertha was never tired of walking and never thought of the cold, for, if the exercise had not kept her warm, the light which shone upon her from Rex’s eyes when she met their gaze would have done so. Perhaps he looked the same at Louie,—very likely he did,—but for the present he was hers alone, and she was supremely happy while the fine, warm weather lasted and with it the companionship on deck. But suddenly there came a change.
Along the western coast of the Atlantic a wild storm had been raging, and when it subsided there it swept towards the east, gathering force as it went, and, joined by the angry winds from every point of the compass, it was almost a cyclone when it reached the Teutonic. But the great ship met it bravely, mounting wave after wave like a feather, then plunging down into the green depths below, then rising again and shaking off the water as if the boiling sea were a mere plaything and the storm gotten up for its pastime. The passengers, who were told that there was no real danger, kept up their courage while the day lasted, but when the night came on and the darkness grew deeper in the salon, where nearly all were assembled, many a face grew white with fear as they listened to the howling of the wind and the roaring of the sea, while wave after wave struck the ship, which sometimes seemed to stand still, and then, trembling in every joint, rose up to meet the angry waves which beat upon it with such tremendous force.
Early in the day Louie had taken to her bed, where she lay sobbing bitterly, while Bertha tried to comfort her. As the darkness was increasing and the noise overhead grew more and more deafening, Rex brought his aunt to the salon, where, like many of the others, she sat down upon the floor, clinging to one of the chairs for support. Then he went to Louie and asked if he should not take her there too.
“No, no! oh, no!” she moaned. “I’d rather die here, if you will stay with me.”
Just then a roll of the ship sent her out upon the floor, where every movable thing in the room had gone before her. After that she made no further resistance, but suffered Bertha to wrap her waterproof around her, and was then carried by Rex and deposited upon one end of a table, where she lay, too much frightened to move, with Rex supporting her on one side and Bertha on the other. And still the storm raged on, and the white faces grew whiter as the question was asked, “What will the end be?” In every heart there was a prayer, and Rex’s mind went back to that night at the Homestead and the prayers for those in peril on the deep. Were they praying now, and would their prayers avail, or would the sad news go to them that their loved one was lying far down in the depths of the sea?
“Oh, if I could save her!” he thought, moving his hand along upon the table until it touched and held hers in a firm clasp which seemed to say, “For life or death you are mine.”