Five Little Peppers Abroad Part 29

"Who?" asked Jasper, in astonishment.

"That woman on the steamer--you knew her--and she was looking straight at us. Duck for your life, Jasper King!"

"Oh, that," said Jasper, coolly, following the bob of his head. "Yes, Mrs. Vanderburgh, I know; and she is at our hotel."

"The d.i.c.kens! And you're alive!" Tom raised his head and regarded him as a curiosity.

"Very much so," answered Jasper, smothering a laugh; "well, we mustn't talk any more."

Polly was sitting straight, her hands folded in her lap, with no thought for audience, or anything but what she was to see and hear on that wonderful stage. Old Mr. King leaned past Parson Henderson, and gazed with the greatest satisfaction at her absorbed face.

"I pity anybody," he said to himself, "who hasn't some little Peppers to take about; I only wish I had the boys, too. But fancy Joel listening to 'Parsifal'!"

This idea completely overcame him, and he settled back into his seat with a grim smile.

Polly never knew that Mamsie, with a happy look in her black eyes, was regarding her intently, too, nor that many a glance was given to the young girl whose colour came and went in her cheek, nor that Jasper sometimes spoke a low word or two. She was lost in the entrancing world of mystery and legend borne upward by the grand music, and she scarcely moved.

"Well, Polly." Old Mr. King was smiling at her and holding out his hand. The curtains had closed for the intermission, and all the people were getting out of their chairs. Polly sat still and drew a long breath. "Oh, Grandpapa, must we go?"

"Yes, indeed, I hope so," answered Mr. King, with a little laugh. "We shall have none too much time for our supper, Polly, as it is."

Polly got out of her seat, very much wishing that supper was not one of the needful things of life.

"It almost seems wicked to think of eating, Jasper," she said, as they picked up their hats and capes, where he had tucked them under the seats.

"It would be more wicked not to eat," said Jasper, with a little laugh, "and I think you'll find some supper tastes good, when we get fairly at it, Polly."

"I suppose so," said Polly, feeling dreadfully stiff in her feet, and beginning to wish she could have a good run.

"And what we should do with you if we didn't stop for supper," observed Jasper, snapping the case to the opera-gla.s.ses, "I'm sure I don't know, Polly. I spoke to you three times, and you didn't hear me once."

"Oh, Jasper!" exclaimed Polly, in horror, pausing as she was pinning on her big, flowered hat, with the roses all around the brim; "O dear me, there it goes!" as the hat spun over into the next row.

"I'll get it," cried Tom Selwyn, vaulting over the tops of the seats before Jasper had a chance to try for it.

Just then Mrs. Vanderburgh, who hadn't heard any more of the opera than could fit itself into her lively plans for the campaign she laid out to accomplish in siege of Tom Selwyn, pushed and elbowed herself along.

"Of course the earl isn't here--and the boy is alone, and dreadfully taken with Jasper King, so I can manage him. And once getting him, I'll soon have the earl to recognise me as a relation." Then, oh! visions of the golden dream of bliss when she could visit such t.i.tled kin in Old England, and report it all when at home in New York, filled her head.

And with her mind eaten up with it, she pushed rudely by a plain, somewhat dowdy-looking woman who obstructed her way.

The woman raised a quiet, yet protesting face; but Mrs. Vanderburgh, related to an earl, surveyed her haughtily, and pressed on.

"Excuse me," said the plain-looking woman, "but it is impossible for me to move; the people are coming out this way, Madam, and--"

"And I must get by," answered Mrs. Vanderburgh, interrupting, and wriggling past as well as she could. But the lace on her flowing sleeve catching on the umbrella handle of a stout German coming the other way, she tore it half across. A dark flush of anger rushed over her face, and she vented all her spite on the plain-looking person in her path.

"If you had moved, this wouldn't have happened!" she exclaimed.

"It was impossible for me to do so," replied the woman, just as quietly as ever. Just then Tom Selwyn rushed up: "Mother!" to the plain-looking woman; "well, we _did_ get separated! Oh!" and seeing her companion he plunged back.

f.a.n.n.y Vanderburgh, well in the rear, a party of young German girls impeding the way, felt her mother's grasp, and looked around.

"Oh, you've torn your lace sleeve!" she exclaimed, supposing the black looks referred to that accident.

"Torn my sleeve!" echoed her mother, irately, "that's a trifle," while f.a.n.n.y stared in surprise, knowing, by past experience, that much lesser accidents had made black days for her; "I'm the unluckiest person alive. And think of all the money your father has given me to spend, and it won't do any good. f.a.n.n.y, I'm going straight back to Paris, as quickly as possible."

"Why, I'm having a good time now," said f.a.n.n.y, just beginning to enjoy herself. "Polly Pepper is real nice to me. I don't want to go home a bit." All this as they slowly filed out in the throng.

"Well, you're going; and, oh, those Peppers and those Kings, I'm sick to death of their names," muttered her mother, frowning on her.

"Why can't we wait for Polly?" asked f.a.n.n.y, not catching the last words, and pausing to look back.

"Because you can't, that's why. And never say a word about that Polly Pepper or any of the rest of that crowd," commanded her mother, trying to hurry on.

"Polly Pepper is the sweetest girl--the very dearest," declared f.a.n.n.y, in a pa.s.sion, over her mother's shoulder, "and you know it, Mamma."

"Well, I won't have you going with her, anyway, nor with any of them,"

answered her mother, shortly.

"Because you can't," echoed f.a.n.n.y, in her turn, and with a malicious little laugh. "Don't I know? it's the same old story--those you chase after, run away from you. You've been chasing, Mamma; you needn't tell me."

"Oh, Jasper," Polly was saying, "did you really speak to me?"

"Three times," said Jasper, with a laugh, "but you couldn't answer, for you didn't hear me."

"No," said Polly, "I didn't, Jasper."

"And I shouldn't have spoken, for it isn't, of course, allowed. But I couldn't help it, Polly, it was so splendid," and his eyes kindled.

"And you didn't seem to breathe or to move."

"I don't feel as if I had done much of either," said Polly, laughing.

"Isn't it good to take a long stretch? And oh, don't you wish we could run, Jasper?"

He burst into another gay little laugh, as he picked up the rest of the things. "I thought so, Polly, and you'll want some supper yet. Well, here is Tom coming back again."

"Indeed I shall, and a big one, Jasper," said Polly, laughing, "for I am dreadfully hungry."

"Come to supper with us," Jasper said socially over the backs of several people, in response to Tom Selwyn's furious telegraphing.

"Can't," said Tom, bobbing his head; "must stay with my mother. Thought you never would turn around." Jasper looked his surprise, and involuntarily glanced by Tom. "Yes, my mother's here; we've got separated, she's gone ahead," said Tom, jerking his head toward the nearest exit. "She says we'll go and see you. Where?"

"Hotel Sonne," said Jasper.

Tom disappeared--rushed off to his mother to jerk himself away to a convenient waiting-place till the disagreeable woman on the steamer had melted into s.p.a.ce. Then he flew back, and in incoherent sentences made Mrs. Selwyn comprehend who she was, and the whole situation.

The earl's daughter was a true British matron, and preserved a quiet, immovable countenance; only a grim smile pa.s.sed over it now and then.

At last she remarked coolly, as if commenting on the weather, "I don't believe she will trouble you, my son." Never a word about the lace episode or the crowding process.

Tom sniffed uneasily. "You haven't crossed on a steamer with her, mother."