Lady Betty Across the Water Part 28

"I must say that's a mighty pretty hat you've got," said she at last.

"I reckon it came from England. And my, but that _is_ a sweet waist.

I'd give my life for that waist."

If I had had a twin sister of the sweet waist with me, I couldn't have resisted pressing it upon her, and I don't believe she would have refused.

As soon as Mr. Brett got me nicely settled in my room, he said we wouldn't meet again during the journey. I was sorry and wanted to know why, so he explained that his ticket was different from mine. I hope that is the only reason, really, and that it isn't because he thinks he ought not to be travelling with me. I suppose he is going second cla.s.s.

I did miss him at dinner, which I had in a grand restaurant car, about half a mile away from me in the train. It was fun being there, seeing all the people, and being served by fascinating black waiters, but it would have been more fun with him. I longed to exclaim to Mr. Brett about the glorious sunset which marched with us along the Hudson River for an enchanted hour, and I couldn't half enjoy it for wondering every minute, as it changed from one beauty to another, whether he were watching too.

We have tenderly radiant sunsets at home, which I love; but they're not startlingly magnificent as in America, where all things--even cloud effects--are managed on such a sensational scale. I saw some skies to remember, in Newport, though never one like this; but perhaps the magical charm of it was partly dependent on the gleaming river.

When the daylight blue had faded, there was a kind of dusky lull. Then, as if flames leaped up out of the clear water, river and mountains and sky ran gold, reddening slowly till the colour burned deep and vivid as the heart of a rose. From crimson was born violet, soft blue-violet that hung like a robe over the mountains, while the living azure of the river was slashed with silver; and as one gazed and gazed, afraid to turn away, there broke a sudden flood of amethyst light out of the floating haze. It was dazzling for a moment, but before one realised the change the brilliance had been drunk up by purple shadows. The outline of trees and foot-hills melted into the pansy gloom, and at last, with one dying quiver of light all warmth of colour was blotted out. Water and sky paled to a pensive grey-blue, and as the French say, "it made night."

There was a tremendous menu for dinner, such as we used to have for breakfast on shipboard, and droves of things whose names I'd never heard before. Just for curiosity, I ordered several of the strangest, and some of them were a great success. For instance, there was "succotash," which sounds as if it might be a guttural insult flung at the mouth of one Red Indian Brave by another; but when it was (figuratively speaking) flung at mine by a black waiter, it turned out to be something more in the nature of a compliment. It looked like beryls mixed with pearls, though it was really only green beans stirred up with American corn; and the two got on so well together you felt they had been born for each other.

It's now about two o'clock in the morning, and it seems as if we must have raced across half America, but we have a long, long way to go still, so says the soft brown thing, who looked in on me about an hour ago to ask in a casual way whether, if she should go to Europe to live, she might not be taken for an Italian?

When I was a little girl, and my nurse used to make up tales to put me to sleep at night, I would sometimes get impatient and tell her to "go down into the story and find out what happened next." Just now, I feel as if that is what I should like to do in my future.

XV

ABOUT SEEING CHICAGO

The first face I saw on the platform when we arrived in Chicago was Mr.

Brett's. He was waiting to help me, and looked as fresh as if he hadn't spent eighteen hours in the train. He said I looked fresh, too; but if I did it must have been excitement, as I'd written half the night and dreamed desperately the other half, about Potter Parker--dressed like one of those Red Indians they have for cigar signs in New York--pursuing me with a jewelled tomahawk.

Mr. Brett had insisted on my telegraphing to Sally before we left New York, to say I was coming, and asking her to meet the train, therefore, we were surprised not to find her at the station. I was rather anxious, and so I could see was Mr. Brett. He thought he had better not drive in a cab with me to the friend's house where she was staying, but he told me the name of a hotel where he would go at once, and made me promise that I would send him a line by the cabman to say whether everything was well with me.

"Miss Woodburn probably has a headache, or perhaps is out of town for the day," said he. "It can't be anything else; still, I shall be a little uneasy till I hear. And you know I hold myself absolutely at your service."

"What about your friend whose business you've come to attend to?" I asked. "I mustn't be so selfish as to interfere with that, whatever happens."

"Oh, I can attend to both interests," he a.s.sured me, "without neglecting either. I shan't need to let one interfere with the other.

And remember, I won't stir out of my hotel till I've had your note."

Bereft of him, Chicago overawed me, and took my breath away. It is a good thing I saw New York first, for if I'd come straight from England with only memories of peaceful London to support me through the ordeal, I don't know but it might have affected my brain.

For one thing, there was a high wind which seemed to have a fancy for making off with your hat. It was an exciting sort of wind, too, which played with your nerves; but whether it was that, or whether something extraordinary was happening just out of sight round the corner of nearly every street we pa.s.sed, and all the people we saw were tearing like mad to the spot, I don't know, but anyhow they seemed a good deal agitated, and there were more varieties of startling street noises even than in New York. The cable cars were like live, untamed things that scorned to wait the convenience of wretched little human beings. Such women and girls as had performed the feat of clambering on board didn't dream for a moment that the creatures might be induced to stop and let them get down. They simply hurled themselves off as they could, and my heart was in my mouth for them, and for myself, many times while my cab mingled with the surging and apparently uncontrolled traffic.

It was a long drive, though, and as I had time to calm down I saw that numbers of the huge buildings are n.o.bly designed, and very magnificent in decoration, making a splendid effect in spite of their vast size rather than because of it. And such shops, too! They're like the fairy palaces my nurse used to tell me about, as big as whole cities, where you could get anything you wanted just by wishing.

On the way, I made up my mind to ask Sally a number of questions; why they have the curbstones so high in Chicago; why the women, though dressed much the same as in New York, look quite different and have a style of their own, even in their walk; why almost all the men are young; and why, though there is such a network of trams, nearly everybody seems to need a motor car?

I think American girls must be braver than English ones, for where with us, if a girl drives a motor she is so remarkable that her picture is at once put in a newspaper, in the States a girl in a car, in the midst of howling traffic, doesn't even have the air of wanting to scream or faint, but just sits straight up and smiles with her figure looking inexpressibly French; and there are two or three of her in every important street.

There was a wonderful swinging bridge which we had to wait for until it chose to come to us, like the mountain to Mahomet, and presently we trotted into a beautiful Avenue near a startlingly unexpected blue sea which I thought must be a mirage, till the cabman said it was Lake Michigan. But who would have thought of a lake being like that? The only ones I ever saw were pretty little things in parks where you fed swans.

At last we stopped before a large, handsome house, with a lawn round it and no fence. The house was stone in front, but had brick sides which gave it a queer effect, yet somehow didn't spoil it; and wherever there wasn't a porch, it had broken out in bow windows.

I told the cabman to wait, and then ran up the four or five steps to ring the front door bell. In a minute a maid came who would have been very smart-looking if she had only worn a proper cap.

"Is Miss Woodburn stopping here?" I asked.

"No, she isn't," returned the young woman with a glint of the eye which seemed to say, she would perish sooner than call anyone "Miss," and I shouldn't wonder if she would have felled me to the earth rather than give me a "ladyship" had it been required of her.

"Are you _sure_?" I persisted, my heart preparing for a plunge bootward.

"I guess so," said the girl with a superior but not ill-natured smile.

"She _was_ staying with us, but she went day before yesterday. I don't think she'll be back, because she's gone to take care of a friend who's real sick, way back in Ohio somewhere."

"Way back in Ohio somewhere!" The words were like a knell for all my hopes. I didn't know what was to become of me now.

"I am sorry," I said. "Do you know if a telegram came for Miss Woodburn yesterday?"

"Yesindeed," replied the young woman, all in one word, but her face brightened. Suddenly she was looking at me like a long-lost friend. "I guess you're expected. Mrs. Hale, that's the lady of the house here, sent the telegram on, and Miss Woodburn telegraphed back about you.

Mrs. Hale went to meet your train, but maybe she didn't recognise you or else she got caught at the bridge. Anyhow she hasn't come back yet.

I guess you'd better come in. Your room is all ready for you."

"My room?" I stammered.

"Why--yes, of course. Mrs. Hale expects you to stay with us till you're good and ready to go somewhere else. You'll like her. She's a nice lady, if I do say it myself."

"She's too kind," I exclaimed. "I never heard of such kindness to a stranger."

"Oh, maybe you haven't been in America long," said the kind lady's servant. "I guess it would be just the same in most any house over here. You come right in, and I'll take you up to your room."

I hadn't thought at first I could like that girl so much, but my heart warmed to her and her mistress, and everything that was hers. Only I couldn't stay. I would have to move on somewhere, like the poor tramps in the Park at home.

"I can't do that, though I'm very grateful indeed to Mrs. Hale," I said. "I--I have other plans. I'll just scribble a little note to tell her so, and thank her, then I must go."

"She'll just never forgive me if I let you," protested the young woman.

I began to be a little afraid that I might be detained by well-meant force; but when I had written a letter to Mrs. Hale, (squeezing Vivace under one arm and sitting at a desk in a bright, charming drawing-room where three Persian cats, six j.a.panese spaniels and a number of birds played about the floor) I contrived to persuade the hospitable creature that my immediate departure was practically a matter of life or death.

Then I threaded my way out of the drawing-room without squashing any of the little tropical, flowerlike things that hopped about and--according to the maid--were worth more than their weight in gold.

I knew I should have loved Mrs. Hale, for her own sake and Sally's and the happy family's in the drawing-room, but I felt I must vanish before she came home, or I should be saddled upon her, and she would feel bound to keep me indefinitely, till Sally returned or I was sent for like a missing parcel by my own people.

So instead of writing my news to Mr. Brett, I went back with it to him, like a bad penny. He must have been surprised when he heard that a lady was waiting in the drawing-room of his hotel, and hurried in to see me sitting there. I should have felt ready to die if he had looked bored, but he didn't a bit.

I told him all my adventures, and about the dogs and cats and birds, and then I asked what on earth I should do now. "I suppose I shall have to go back to New York," I said gloomily, "and cable to my brother. I could stop at some _pension_ and wait till I heard--a quiet _pension_, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox wouldn't be likely to know about."

"You alone in a New York boarding house!" exclaimed Mr. Brett. "Never."

"Then could you find me a Chicago one?"