It had become a question whether Ermengarde or her hand-baggage, which she was quite incapable of shouldering personally, or both, should be left behind, when, after wild appeals to various haughty and inaccessible officials, an aged and morose blue jersey was at last raked out of some recess, and with difficulty prevailed upon to hang himself with her various properties. Then, surlily commanding her to follow him along a quarter of a mile or so of sloppy, narrow planking, crowded with people hurrying in every direction, to an invisible and improbable boat, he started off at express speed, easily making a path for himself through the press by the simple process of wedging his burdens into the softest parts of people's ribs and shoulders.
Ermengarde, having no such weapons of offence and defence, not only failed to make any such path for herself, but suffered sadly from the assaults of other armed amphibious monsters; and when, after a long and severe struggle, she arrived, bruised, panting and dishevelled, at a huge vessel that she hoped was the right one, she found her own surly amphibian goaded to savagery by waiting to such an extent that he was only with great difficulty induced to carry his burdens to the upper deck, where a cloudless sky and a windless sea promised a calm and exhilarating passage. But there the blue jersey's remnant of humanity came to an end. Find her a seat or a deck-chair he would not, for love or money or persuasion; but, hurling his burdens to the floor, he demanded double the silver she placed in his hand, received it, and bolted.
Serried phalanxes of deck-chairs already crowded the deck and filled every desirable position; but all were either occupied by happy voyagers, comfortably tucked up in rugs and motor veils and caps, or by wraps and luggage, chiefly masculine. Vainly did the hapless Ermengarde implore the boys and men constantly emerging from the bowels of the vessel, laden with chairs and stools, to fetch one for her. Stony silence, or at best a negative headshake, was all this lone, lorn female could extract from these iron-hearted creatures. She was still very weak; she was also famished; her little strength was exhausted by the preliminary journey; in dread of sea-sickness, she dared not turn her back to the vessel's direction, knowing she could neither walk up and down nor stand, as others did. She dared not descend the companion-ladder after the motion once began, and had she done so, knew herself to be incapable of carrying her rugs and small necessities. Shivering and faint, she was about to subside ignominiously on the planks, when she caught sight of a chair-carrier returning empty-handed to the companion, and once more entreated a chair of him.
"Sorry, madam, nothing but camp-stools left," he said, and was despairingly told to bring anything that could be sat upon, which he quickly did—for a stipulated price. All this time an empty deck-chair had been on one side of her, and another, occupied by an exceedingly well-tucked-up, fur-collared and fur-rugged youth of athletic build, on the other. An elderly man, standing talking to a grey-haired woman who lounged in another deck-chair, was the lawful tenant of the empty chair; and when the boy at last appeared with a rickety camp-stool, on to which Ermengarde was about to sink from exhaustion in the standing-place she had with difficulty kept all this time between the two men's chairs, the elderly man suddenly appeared to become aware of her difficulties, and turned to her with a gruff, "Better change your stool for my chair—don't suppose I shall want it—rather walk up and down," and turned sullenly away.
Sinking gratefully upon the long chair, so restful in spite of its wooden hardness, with the sun shining and the sea sparkling to the even movement of the great turbine vessel as they caught the faint breeze of their motion, Ermengarde would now have been happy, but for the fear of that dread penalty the sea exacts from sensitive voyagers, and the impossibility in her giddiness and weakness of opening the straps that held her rugs and shawls. How exasperatingly, aggressively, comfortable people looked, chatting and laughing in their cosy furs; some even shielded themselves from the mild warmth of the wintry sun with parasols, though Ermengarde would have welcomed the glare of a furnace, as she shivered in the sharp sea air.
But others were worse off than she. So much so that she was even moved to offer her own hard-won chair to a pretty, slender French girl, pale and tired-looking, who kept leaning against anything that came in her way till she seemed to become chilled to the bone, when she would move a little and come back to the best place she could find. Presently she leant against an iron balk close to an inviting deck-lounge, which was occupied the whole way across by a hard round hat, a man's fur coat, and some walking-sticks and umbrellas. Ermengarde longed to send these properties flying—especially the hat, which inspired her with peculiarly acute hatred—and lay the pretty, tired French girl upon the comfortable lounge, if only till the owner of the hard hat came to claim it, which he never did, till they went ashore. Had she been certain of her ability to keep her feet, Ermengarde would certainly have yielded her own chair to the girl, and annexed to her own use that sequestrated by the owner of the detestable hat; it would have been such a pleasure to kick and stamp on that hat and hear it boom like a drum, and pop like a burst motor-tyre. But she was by no means certain of her ability to do anything but shiver.
An eternity of shivers and qualms seemed to pass before the spires of Calais appeared between gaps made in groups pacing the deck, an eternity mitigated by the thought that every shiver brought one nearer to the artistically decorated, electric warmed and lighted, flying boudoir, with its voluptuous sofa, etc., in the rightly named Train de Luxe—the very sound of which diffused an atmosphere of comfort and peace.
And now at last all fear of the dread penalty of the inexorable sea was at an end, and Ermengarde rose to her feet in the proud consciousness of being able to stand, and even walk, without sudden subsidences to the deck or into the unwilling embraces of indignant fellow-voyagers. Helped by a sailor, who unexpectedly appeared at her side as if from the clouds, and was easily persuaded to carry her things, she got down to the level of the landing-place, and enjoyed the first thrill of foreign parts at the sight of blue-cloaked men in uniform, short and solid, with bristling moustache and complacent strut. How good it is, the first sight of these dear, delightful creatures, who never seem to have anything to do but enjoy dignified and ornamental leisure for the benefit of admiring mankind! And how good, Ermengarde thought, to see a gangway shot into a crowd of laughing, gesticulating, blue-bloused porters—to see them hurl themselves upon the gangway tumultuously, one over the other, in a solid mass, with shouts, songs, and exclamations, and so board the vessel, leaping and laughing, and, falling upon passenger after passenger, tear their precious misnamed hand-baggage from them, strap it across their own shoulders, and, deaf to all entreaties, fight their way back to the gangway, leap ashore, and fly from sight.
She would have followed her own especial robber, but that he forbade her with gay volubility, and bid her accompany the rest of the robbed and find him again at the Custom-house.
"Numéro Quatre," he cried, tapping the brass plate on his cap, and dancing off with the grin and gesture of a good-natured gnome.