Chapter VI: On the Teutonic

Bertha found Mrs. Hallam in her state-room, which was one of the largest and most expensive on the ship. With her were three or four ladies who were there to say good-bye, all talking together and offering advice in case of sickness, while Mrs. Hallam fanned herself vigorously, as the morning was very hot.

“Are you not taking a maid?” one of the ladies asked, and Mrs. Hallam replied that Mrs. Haynes advised her to get one in Paris, adding, “I have a young girl as companion, and I’m sure I don’t know where she is. She ought to be here by this time. I dare say she will be more trouble than good. She seems quite the fine lady. I hardly know what I am to do with her.”

“Keep her in her place,” was the prompt advice of a little, common-looking woman, who was once a nursery governess, but was now a millionaire, and perfectly competent to advise as to the proper treatment of a companion.

Just then Bertha appeared, and was stared at by the ladies, who took no further notice of her.

“I am glad you’ve got here at last. What kept you so long?” Mrs. Hallam asked, a little petulantly, while Bertha replied that she had been detained by a block in the street cars, and asked if there was anything she could do.

“Yes,” Mrs. Hallam answered. “I wish you would open my sea trunk and satchel, and get out my wrapper, and shawl, and cushion, and toilet articles, and salts, and camphor. I am sure to be sick the minute we get out to sea.” And handing her keys to Bertha, she went with her friends outside, where the crowd was increasing every moment.

The passenger-list was full, and every passenger had at least half a dozen acquaintances to see him off, so that by the time Bertha had arranged Mrs. Hallam’s belongings, and gone out on deck, there was hardly standing room. Finding a seat near the purser’s office, she sat down and watched the surging mass of human beings, jostling, pushing, crowding each other, the confusion reaching its climax when the order came for the ship to be cleared of all visitors. Then for a time they stood so thickly around her that she could see nothing and hear nothing but a confused babel of voices, until suddenly there was a break in the ranks, and a tall young man, who had been fighting his way to the plank, pitched headlong against her with such force that she fell from the seat, losing her hat in the fall, and striking her forehead on a sharp point near her.

“I beg your pardon; are you much hurt? I am so sorry, but I could not help it, they pushed me so in this infernal crowd. Let me help you up,” a pleasant, manly voice, full of concern, said to her, while two strong hands lifted her to her feet, and on to the seat where she had been sitting. “You are safe here, unless some other blunderhead knocks you down again,” the young man continued, as he managed to pick up her hat. “Some wretch has stepped on it, but I think I can doctor it into shape,” he said, giving it a twist or two, and then putting it very carefully on Bertha’s head hind side before. “There! It is all right, I think, though, upon my soul, it does seem a little askew,” he added, looking for the first time fully at Bertha, who was holding her hand to her forehead, where a big bump was beginning to show.

Her hand hid a portion of her face, but she smiled brightly and gratefully upon the stranger, whose manner was so friendly and whose brown eyes seen through his glasses looked so kindly at her.

“By Jove, you are hurt,” he continued, “and I did it. I can’t help you, as I’ve got to go, but my aunt is on board,—Mrs. Carter Hallam; find her, and tell her that her awkward nephew came near knocking your brains out. She has every kind of drug and lotion imaginable, from morphine to Pond’s extract, and is sure to find something for that bump. And now I must go or be carried off.”

He gave another twist to her hat and offered her his hand, and then ran down the plank to the wharf, where, with hundreds of others, he stood, waving his hat and cane to his friends on the ship, which began to move slowly from the dock. He was so tall that Bertha could see him distinctly, and she stood watching him and him alone, until he was a speck in the distance. Then, with a feeling of loneliness, she started for her state-room, where Mrs. Hallam, who had preceded her, was looking rather cross and doing her best to be sick, although as yet there was scarcely any motion to the vessel.

Reginald, whose train was late, had hurried at once to the ship, which he reached in time to see his aunt for a few moments only. Her last friend had said good-bye, and she was feeling very forlorn, and wondering where Bertha could be, when he came rushing up, bringing so much life and sunshine and magnetism with him that Mrs. Hallam began to feel doubly forlorn as she wondered what she should do without him.

“Oh, Rex,” she said, laying her head on his arm and beginning to cry a little, “I am so glad you have come, and I wish you were going with me. I fear I have made a mistake starting off alone. I don’t know at all how to take care of myself.”

Rex smoothed her hair, patted her hand, soothed her as well as he could, and told her he was sure she would get on well enough and that he would certainly join her in August.

“Where is Miss Leighton? Hasn’t she put in an appearance?” he asked, and his aunt replied, with a little asperity of manner:

“Yes; she came last night, and she seems a high and mighty sort of damsel. I am disappointed, and afraid I shall have trouble with her.”

“Sit down on her if she gets too high and mighty,” Rex said, laughingly, while his aunt was debating the propriety of telling him of the mistake and who Bertha was.

“I don’t believe I will. He will find it out soon enough,” she thought, just as the last warning to leave the boat was given, and with a hurried good-bye Rex left her, saying, as he did so:

“I’ll look a bit among the crowd, and if I find your squint-eyed damsel I’ll send her to you. I shall know her in a minute.”

Here was a good chance to explain, but Mrs. Hallam let it pass, and Rex went his way, searching here and there for a light-haired, weak-eyed woman answering to her photograph.

But he did not find her, and ran instead against Bertha, with no suspicion that she was the girl he had told his aunt to sit on, and for whom that lady waited rather impatiently after the ship was cleared.

“Oh!” she said, as Bertha came in. “I have been waiting for you some time. Did you have friends to say good-bye to? Give me my salts, please, and camphor, and fan, and a pillow, and close that shutter. I don’t want the herd looking in upon me; nor do I think this room so very desirable, with all the people passing and repassing. I told Rex so, and he said nobody wanted to see me in my night-cap. He was here to say good-bye. His train got in just in time.”

Bertha closed the shutters and brought a pillow and fan and the camphor and salts, and then bathed the bruise on her forehead, which was increasing in size and finally attracted Mrs. Hallam’s attention.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, and Bertha replied, “I was knocked down in the crowd by a young man who told me he had an aunt, a Mrs. Hallam, on board. I suppose he must have been your nephew.”

“Did you tell him who you were?” Mrs. Hallam asked, with a shake of her head and disapproval in her voice.

“No, madam,” Bertha replied. “He was trying to apologize for what he had done, and spoke to me of you as one to whom I could go for help if I was badly hurt.”

“Yes, that is like Reginald,—thinking of everything,” Mrs. Hallam said. After a moment she added, “He has lived with me since he was a boy, and is the same as a son. He will join me in Aix-les-Bains in August. Miss Grace Haynes is there, and I don’t mind telling you, as you will probably see for yourself, that I think there is a sort of understanding between him and her. Nothing would please me better.”

“There! I have headed off any idea she might possibly have with regard to Rex, who is so democratic and was so struck with her photograph, while she,—well, there is something in her eyes and the lofty way she carries her head and shoulders that I don’t like; it looks too much like equality, and I am afraid I may have to sit on her, as Rex bade me do,” was Mrs. Hallam’s mental comment, as she adjusted herself upon her couch and issued her numerous orders.

For three days she stayed in her state-room, not because she was actually sea-sick, but because she feared she would be. To lie perfectly quiet in her berth until she was accustomed to the motion of the vessel was the advice given her by one of her friends, and as far as possible she followed it, while Bertha was kept in constant attendance, reading to her, brushing her hair, bathing her head, opening and shutting the windows, and taking messages to those of her acquaintances able to be on deck. The sea was rather rough for June, but Bertha was not at all affected by it, and the only inconvenience she suffered was want of sufficient exercise and fresh air. Early in the morning, while Mrs. Hallam slept, she was free to go on deck, and again late in the evening, after the lady had retired for the night. These walks, with going to her meals, were the only recreation or change she had, and she was beginning to droop a little, when at last Mrs. Hallam declared herself able to go upon deck, where, by the aid of means which seldom fail, she managed to gain possession of the sunniest and most sheltered spot, which she held in spite of the protestations of another party who claimed the place on the ground of first occupancy. She was Mrs. Carter Hallam, and she kept the field until a vacancy occurred in the vicinity of some people whom to know, if possible, was desirable. Then she moved, and had her reward in being told by one of the magnates that it was a fine day and the ship was making good time.

Every morning Bertha brought her rugs and wraps and cushions and umbrella, and after seeing her comfortably adjusted sat down at a respectful distance and waited for orders, which were far more frequent than was necessary. No one spoke to her, although many curious and admiring glances were cast at the bright, handsome girl who seemed quite as much a lady as her mistress, but who was performing the duties of a maid and was put down upon the passenger-list as Mrs. Hallam’s companion. As it chanced, there was a royal personage on board, and one day when standing near, Bertha, who was watching a steamer just appearing upon the horizon, he addressed some remark to her, and then, attracted by something in her face, or manner, or both, continued to talk with her, until Mrs. Hallam’s peremptory voice called out:

“Bertha, I want you, Don’t you see my rug is falling off?”

There was a questioning glance at the girl thus bidden and at the woman who bade her, and then, lifting his hat politely to the former, the stranger walked away, while Bertha went to Mrs. Hallam, who said to her sharply:

“I wonder at your presumption; but possibly you did not know to whom you were talking?”

“Oh, yes, I did,” Bertha replied. “It was the prince. He speaks English fluently, and I found him very agreeable.”

She was apparently as unconcerned as if it had been the habit of her life to consort with royalty, and Mrs. Hallam looked at her wonderingly, conscious in her narrow soul of an increased feeling of respect for the girl whom a prince had honored with his notice and who took it so coolly and naturally. But she did not abate her requirements or exactions in the least. On the contrary, it seemed as if she increased them. But Bertha bore it all patiently, performing every task imposed upon her as if it were a pleasure, and never giving any sign of fatigue, although in reality she was never so tired in her life as when at last they sailed up the Mersey and into the docks at Liverpool.

At Queenstown she sent off a letter to Dorcas, in which, after speaking of her arrival in New York and the voyage in general, she wrote, “I hardly know what to say of Mrs. Hallam until I have seen more of her. She is a great lady, and great ladies need a great deal of waiting upon, and the greater they are the greater their need. There must be something Shylocky in her nature, and, as she gives me a big salary, she means to have her pound of flesh. I am down on the passenger-list as her companion, but it should be maid, as I am really that. But when we reach Paris there will be a change, as she is to have a French maid there. It will surprise you, as it did me, to know that she belongs to the Hallams for whom the Homestead was named and who father thought were all dead. Her husband was born there. Where she came from I do not know. She is very reticent on that point. I shouldn’t be surprised if she once worked in a factory, she is so particular to have her position recognized. Such a scramble as she had to get to the captain’s table; though what good that does I cannot guess, inasmuch as he is seldom there himself. I am at _Nobody’s_ table, and like it, because I am a nobody.

“Do you remember the letter father had, saying that some New Yorker wanted to buy our farm and was coming to look at it? That New Yorker is cousin Louie’s Reginald Hallam, of whom I told you, and Mrs. Carter’s nephew; not in the least like her, I fancy, although I have only had the pleasure of being knocked down by him on the ship. But he was not to blame. The crowd pushed him against me with such force that I fell off the seat and nearly broke my head. My hat was crushed out of all shape, and he made it worse trying to twist it back. He was kindness itself, and his brown eyes full of concern as they looked at me through the clearest pair of rimless glasses I ever saw. He did not know who I was, of course, but I am sure he would have been just as kind if he had. I can understand Louie’s infatuation for him, and why his aunt adores him.

“But what nonsense to be writing with Queenstown in sight, and this letter must be finished to send off. I am half ashamed of what I have said of Mrs. Hallam, who when she forgets what a grand lady she is, can be very nice, and I really think she likes me a little.

“And now I must close, with more love for you and father than can be carried in a hundred letters. Will write again from Paris. Good-bye, good-bye.

“BERTHA.

“P. S. I told you that if a New Yorker came to buy the farm you were to shut the door in his face. But you may as well let him in.”