A Woman's Will Part 58

THE BREAKING OF THE BARRIERS

Chapter Fourteen

It was very early, very dark, very cheerless, that most miserable hour of six o'clock in the morning, the very worst hour ever known in which to be routed out of bed in order that an unpleasant journey may be begun.

Without, it was faintly light; within, it was brightly gas. What is less cheerful than the aspect given a room by the gas burning high at six o'clock in the morning? Rosina's room looked absolutely ghastly, for it was bare of everything but travelling apparatus, and they were all strapped and waiting. She herself sat before her untouched breakfast tray and watched Ottillie lace her boots, while she dismally went over for the two hundred and seventy-sixth time every detail of the night before the last.

There was a tap at the door and Jack came in. He was tanned with his recent trip and had a thrilling new travelling ulster with carved deer-horn b.u.t.tons. He had bought the b.u.t.tons at the Tagernsee and had had an ulster constructed in Vienna, just as a background for them. He looked at his cousin with a buoyant air that she felt to be bitterly unkind, all things considered, and exclaimed:

"You must hurry up, my dear; the cab will be at the door in five minutes, and we don't want to miss that train, you know."

"I'm quite ready," she said helplessly.

"Is all this stuff going?" he asked, looking about; "you can't mean to carry all this with us to Genoa, surely."

Rosina's eyes strayed here and there over the umbrella case, the two dress-boxes, the carry-all, the toilet case, the two valises, the dress-suit case, and the hat-box. She did not appear to consider the total anything to be ashamed of.

"What's in those two boxes?" Jack continued.

"Clothes."

"Why didn't you put them in a trunk?"

"You told me to send all my trunks _frachtgut_ two weeks ago. I had to keep out some to wear, naturally."

He drew a martyr's breath.

"You do beat all! I don't know how we're ever going to get all this stuff along with us. There isn't anything more, is there, Ottillie?"

"_Oh, mais non, monsieur!_"

"All right. You better have them take all this down; the cab must be there by this time."

Rosina stood up.

"I must say good-bye to Fraulein Helene and her mamma," she said sadly, going to the door.

The good-bye was a trying one, and its tears were harshly interrupted by a voice in the hall:

"Come on, Rosina, we're going to miss that train for a fact if you don't hurry."

"Go, my dear child," said Frau G----; "do not weep so. Many think that they are going forever, but they all always return."

Rosina choked, and went.

Jack rattled her down the stairs--those sob-provoking stairs--at a tremendous rate, and when they went out of the _porte_ their eyes were greeted by a cab that looked like a furniture van, so overloaded was its capacity.

"George, but it's full!" Jack cried in dismay. "Well, there's no time to get another; we must just pile in some way and let it go at that."

They piled in some way and it went at that.

"The train leaves at 7.20," Jack remarked as they pa.s.sed the post-office clock, "we shall just make it easy."

Rosina made no answer, and no one spoke again until they reached the Karl Platz and the cabman slowed up and looked around inquiringly; for some trains are reached from the front and some from the sides of the main station at Munich, and the cabs suit their routes to the circ.u.mstances from the Karl Platz on.

"Zurich!" Jack called out, "and hurry!" he added. "We really are making pretty close connection," he went on, "it's 7.05 now. But then there is only one trunk to check."

"I'm glad that that's yours," Rosina said, thinking of her hand luggage and his comments thereon.

He whistled blithely.

"Oh, we'll get there all straight," he said hopefully.

They drew up before the Bahnhof at 7.10, and it behooved the man of the party to be very spry indeed. He got their unlimited baggage on to a hand-truck, paid the cabman, and hustled the whole caravan inside.

"_Wo fahren Sie hin?_" asked the porter who operated the hand-truck, as he went leisurely after their haste.

"Zurich," said Jack, "and _wir haben sehr wenig_ time to spare; you want to look lively." Then he rushed to the ticket gate to send Rosina and her maid aboard while the trunk was being weighed.

"_Wo fahren Sie hin?_" asked the man at the gate.

"Zurich."

"Train goes at 7.45."

"It doesn't either," said Jack, who understood German fluently, "it goes at 7.20."

For answer the man pointed to the great sign above his head, which bore out the truth of his statement in letters six inches high.

"Well, I vow," said Jack blankly, "if that man at Schenker's isn't the worst fraud I ever ran up against. Say, cousin, we've got over half an hour to check my trunk in."

She shook her head as if she didn't care.

"I'll go and see to it now," he said, "and then I'll come back here and try to get on to the train."

He went off, and they waited by the gate while the man stationed there looked at Ottillie, and her mistress recalled the tone in which a voice had said, "It is for the first and last time!" and what came next.

When Jack returned they were permitted to pa.s.s the gates and go aboard the cars. The porter loaded the entire length of both racks with their belongings, and as soon as he was paid Jack hung up his ulster with the deer-horn b.u.t.tons, stretched himself at full length upon the longest seat, and was asleep within five minutes.

Rosina took the window corner opposite him and contemplated his callous slumber with a burning bitterness.

"And he must see how unhappy I am, too," she said to herself.

Then she leaned her chin upon her hand and fell into a reverie which so blinded her with tears that when the train did move out of the yards she beheld a Munich of mist and fog, and a Pasing which was a mere blot amidst the general blur of her universe. She did not want to go to Genoa, she wanted to stay in Germany; and everything which the train pa.s.sed appeared to be returning towards Munich with all possible speed, while she, she alone, was being borne swiftly away from all--all--all.

"Leaving for home," she reflected. "I'm not _leaving_ at all; I'm simply being wrenched away! Talk about turning one's face towards America! I'm not turning my face; I'm having my neck wrung in that direction!" and the tears rolled heavily down her cheeks.