102CHAPTER XV“LAND, HO!”
Lucile opened her eyes slowly, lazily, and let them rove aimlessly about the bright cabin; then, chancing to come upon Jessie and Evelyn sleeping sweetly and peacefully, they stopped and focused resentfully.
“Nothing to do but sleep,” she murmured, pushing back her rumpled curls and yawning prodigiously. “I wonder why it is I always have to wake up first,” and then, her eyes happening to fall on Evelyn at this precise moment, she cried, “Oh, I saw you wink, Evelyn; you can’t fool me! You’re playing possum,” and, springing quickly out of bed, she gave that young lady a vigorous shake, which caused her to open her eyes rather suddenly.
“Wh-what’s the matter? Can’t you let a fellow sleep?” she began, but the laughter in her eyes belied the sleepy tone, and Lucile hugged her and pulled her out of bed. “I’ll admit you’re a dabster, Evelyn, dear,” she cried, “but you will have to get up early in the morning to get the best of your little friend.”
Evelyn laughed merrily. “You whirlwind!” she cried. “Nobody has a chance to sleep when you’re around.”
“Don’t be too sure of that; look at Jessie. She is still sleeping the sleep of the just.”
“All right; let’s make her get up, then. Even if she does want to sleep, why should we worry?”
“Evelyn,” cried Lucy, shocked, “you’re getting most horribly slangy.”
“Oh, Lucy, you look so funny, trying to be severe in that rig! It can’t be done!” And, with a laugh, she plumped down on something hard and lumpy, which proved103to be Jessie’s feet. The outraged owner objected promptly and emphatically.
“Oh, Jessie, I’m so sorry! Are those your feet?” cried Evelyn, in concern.
“No; they are Lucy’s,” said Jessie, coldly, rubbing the injured members gingerly.
Lucile laughed merrily. “Don’t you go slandering my poor feet,” she cried. “Anyway, it serves you right for being so lazy, Jess.”
“Oh, does it? Well, I’ll just prove you wrong by beating you all on deck, One, two, three—we’re off!”
Then ensued a great amount of talk and laughter and wild scrambling for clothing that would get out of sight, until at the end of half an hour, our girls made a dash for the door at precisely the same instant.
“Oh, that’s not fair,” cried Evelyn, as Lucile wrenched open the door and ran straight into the arms of the rather stout, middle-aged matron who happened to be passing.
“Oh,” she gasped, “I—I beg your pardon! I——”
“Look first, and you will save your apologies,” said the sweet-tempered lady, who, to do her justice, was considerably shaken by the impact.
Lucile flushed scarlet, but walked on with her head in the air, thankful she had not expressed the thought that had rushed to her lips.
“Cranky old curmudgeon!” murmured Evelyn, vindictively. “It’s lucky there aren’t so many of them in the world.”
To their surprise, Lucile began to laugh with great enjoyment. “Girls,” she said, “did you hear her say ‘woof’ when we clashed?”
Two hours later they sighted the harbor, and on board pandemonium broke loose. Questions and answers were fired back and forth like bullets from a Gatling gun, and everywhere field glasses were glued to eager eyes.
“So that’s England?” said Lucile. “Oh, Jessie, pinch me!”104
“Won’t. Love you too much,” said Jessie, gazing intently toward the harbor, which became more and more distinct with every passing moment.
“Don’t let any such soft scruples stand in your way,” said Phil, administering the desired pinch with such good effect that Lucile jumped almost a foot and lowered her glasses to gaze reproachfully at him.
“Phil, that will be black and blue for a month,” she said, with conviction. “You needn’t have done it so hard.”
“You didn’t say not to,” said Phil, with the air of injured innocence that sat so comically upon him. “Here comes old Charlie,” he added, a minute later. “Wonder if he’s found anything since last night.”
“Who in the world is old Charlie?” inquired Jessie, mystified.
“Old Charlie? Why, old Charlie is short for Monsieur Charloix, of course,” elucidated Phil, with the patronizing air of one speaking to a peculiarly stupid child.
Instantly the girls’ interest in Liverpool harbor waned, as they turned smilingly to greet the historian of last night.
“I see Mademoiselle is entirely recovered from the seasickness,” said he, turning to Lucile. “It is good to see you looking so well.”
“Thank you, Monsieur. I suppose you will be glad to get back to France?”
“Oh, very glad, for, though I admire your America, it is not to me like my own country,” said he, smiling.
It was not long before they were joined by other excited fellow-passengers, all talking at once about what they intended to do upon reaching land, and in the babble it was impossible to carry on any but a disjointed conversation, so the girls wisely gave up trying.
Nevertheless, Lucile had been more deeply impressed than any of the rest by the recital of Monsieur’s tragic romance. It seemed, somehow, like the plays their guardian had described to them. Phil, the skeptical, had seemed inclined to think the story over-drawn, but the girls had105emphatically disagreed with him, overwhelming him by sheer force of numbers. And way down in Lucile’s heart was the hope that she would, sooner or later, hear the finishing chapter of the romance. Whether this premonition was inspired partly by her own desire or partly by the fact that, sooner or later, they would be in France itself, where they would have the opportunity of following the fortunes of the disconsolate Frenchman, cannot be determined, but certain it was, the premonition was there. As she had said to Jessie at the end of a long and excited discussion the night before, “Stranger things have happened.”
And so, in the girl’s eyes, and, in fact, in the eyes of all who had heard his story, even Phil, the stranger had taken on an added importance, the importance of the chief actor in a romantic drama.
“I would like to help,” Lucile murmured, as the Frenchman excused himself and moved off down the deck. “I never saw any one look so wistful in all my life.”
“No wonder,” said Jessie, in the same tone. “If I had been through all he has, I’d never have lived to tell about it.”
“And poor Jeanette!” Lucile mused on. “I’d give almost anything if I could bring them together again.”
Jessie glanced at her friend curiously. “Perhaps you will tell me now that my dear old novels always exaggerate,” she challenged.
“A little more of this sort of thing and I’ll be able to believe anything,” Lucile answered, with a rueful smile. “It surely is wonderful!”
“Oh, Lucy, dear, I may convert you yet,” Jessie was crying gleefully, when she was interrupted by another crowd of fellow-voyagers, who, for the time being at least, cut her triumph short.
Later came the call to luncheon, and everybody hurried down to the dining-room, where the atmosphere of excitement and unrest prevailed to such a degree that people almost forgot to eat, or else bolted their meals in half the ordinary time, anxious not to miss a moment above decks.106
Then, toward one o’clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Payton advised the girls to get everything ready, and see that nothing was left in the stateroom.
“We will dock in a few minutes,” she explained, “and we don’t want to leave everything until the last instant.”
Down rushed the girls to the stateroom obediently, treading on each other’s heels and not even bothering to apologize, for what was so everyday a thing as politeness at such a time?
Jessie and Evelyn waited in undisguised impatience while Lucile fumblingly fitted the key into the lock with fingers that trembled rebelliously.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, let me have it!” said Jessie, in desperation.
“Hold on a minute; there it is!” And as the door swung open, they tumbled rather than walked into the room.
“Oh, bother! Where did I put my comb?” moaned Evelyn, searching wildly under the dresser for the missing article. “You might know it would disappear just when I haven’t any time to look for it. Are you sure you’re not sitting on it, Lucy?”
“Of course not,” denied Lucile; “but if you don’t get off my suitcase this minute, Jessie Sanderson, I’ll know the reason why.”
“Here’s your comb, Evelyn! Catch!” said Jessie, throwing the missing article toward her friend. “If you would only keep it over on your side instead——”
“Oh, if you talk so much you will never be ready, Jessie! Do hurry!” And so on in this fashion until, finally, the last thing was ready and they tumbled up on deck again, only to be swallowed up by a jostling, gesticulating throng intent, apparently, on getting nowhere in particular, and doing it, withal, with a perseverance that was truly admirable.
“Hello!” said Phil, elbowing his way through the crowd. “We dock in ten minutes. Just look at the harbor now;” and he was off again.107
With difficulty they made their way to the rail and stood gazing at the scene with wondering eyes and parted lips. Craft of all sizes and descriptions plowed and snorted through the ruffled water, and everywhere was life and bustle and activity. And further back, past the lines of docks and warehouses, the girls could discern the spires and steeples of—England!
“Well,” came Mr. Payton’s gruff, hearty voice from just behind them, “how do you like your first glimpse of the Old World, eh? It won’t be any time at all before you set foot upon it.”
“Oh, Daddy, isn’t it magnificent?” said Lucile, drawing a long breath. “It all looks just exactly the way I dreamed it would, though. Oh, I can’t wait!” and she leaned far over the rail, as if by that means to bring it so much the nearer.
Her father’s strong hand drew her back to safety, and he said, reprovingly, “Don’t do that again, Lucy. Accidents will happen, you know.”
“Even in the best-regulated families,” finished Lucile, gaily.
Her father laughed, and pinched the tip of one pink ear fondly. “I suppose there is no use trying to make any of you serious at such a time,” he said, with the resigned air of one giving up all hope; “but there is one little phrase that it will be well for you to remember, and that is, ‘Safety first.’”
And with that fatherly admonition he left them, bidding them wait where they were until he could rejoin them. In a few minutes he returned, bringing his wife and Phil, declaring that nothing now remained to be done but walk off the ship when the time came.
The great “Mauretania” was very near her destination now, and was nosing her way carefully through the traffic, convoyed by two snorting and puffing tugs. The raucous shouts and cries of sailors and watermen came to their ears, with now and then a snatch of song from the decks of some tall, four-masted freighter. There were shouts of108“aye, aye, sir” and “ship, ahoy,” mingled with the rasping of cables and the clatter of cargo cranes—and behind all this noise and confusion lay the quaint, historic streets of Liverpool, and later, London, filled with the glory of ancient times.
The girls’ eyes were large and dark with wonder and excitement as they lowered their glasses and looked at each other.
“Yes, you are awake,” said Mrs. Payton, with a laugh, interpreting the look.
“Jessie looks as though she had just seen a ghost,” said Phil.
A few minutes later the great liner was warped securely alongside the great landing stage, while the whistle shrieked a noisy greeting. Passengers hurried from one group to another, shaking hands in a final farewell with shipboard acquaintances whom they had come to know so well in so short a time. Porters hurried past, laden with luggage, and groups of eager passengers formed about the entrance to the gangways.
“I feel as though my hand had been shaken off,” said Evelyn, regarding that very necessary appendage ruefully.
“Oh, there’s Mrs. Applegate and Puss,” said Lucile, and darted off through the crowd so suddenly that the girls could only follow her with their eyes.
“Lucile,” cried Mrs. Payton, and then, as her voice would not carry above all the noise, “Go after her, Phil,” she said. “If she gets separated from us now, we will have a hard time finding her.”
Phil hurried off and was soon lost to sight in the swaying crowd.
“Oh, what did she do that for?” wailed Jessie. “If Lucy goes and gets lost now in all this crowd——”
“Don’t worry; Phil will have her back in a jiffy,” said Mr. Payton, soothingly, but the frown on his forehead betrayed his own anxiety.109
The gangplanks were lowered, and the people had already begun to surge forward, and still no sign of either Lucile or Phil.
They eagerly searched the faces of the passers-by, nodding to some, yet scarcely seeing them, while Mr. Payton began to mutter something about “tying a string to that cyclonic young flyaway” when he got her back again.
Five minutes passed. The deck was beginning to be emptied of people, and they had begun to make their way slowly toward the gangplank, when Phil came rushing up to them, very red and very much out of breath.
“Well?” they cried together, and Mr. Payton took him by the shoulder, demanding, sternly, “Where is she?”
“Wouldn’t it make you sick?” panted Phil, disgustedly. “Here I rush all over the boat trying to locate her, and get everybody scared to death, thinking she’s fallen overboard or something, and then I find her down on the float there, talking to the——”
“What?” interrupted Mr. Payton, incredulously.
“Yes. Isn’t it the limit?” said Phil, fanning himself with his hat. “Said she couldn’t find her way back to you, so thought she’d wait with the Applegates at the foot of the gangplank; said she knew you would find her there.”
The girls laughed hysterically, and even Mr. Payton’s stern face relaxed; the action was so truly “Lucilian.”
“Well, I suppose all we can do is to follow,” said Mr. Payton, and Mrs. Payton added, pathetically, “I do wish Lucile would be a trifle less impulsive now and then; it might save us a good deal of trouble.”
Mr. Payton had felt inclined to read his “cyclonic” young daughter a lecture, but the sight of her bright young face completely disarmed him, and he could only breathe a prayer of thankfulness that she was safe.
They said good-by to Mr. and Mrs. Applegate and their very diminutive daughter—whom somebody had fondly nicknamed “Puss”—and turned to follow the crowd. A short time later they set foot for the first time on the soil of the Old World.110
“Where are we going, Dad, now that we’re here?” asked Phil.
“To London, as fast as we can, by the train that connects with our steamer,” said his father. “Stick together, everybody—here we are,” and he hustled them before him into the long coach—for in England, you must remember, trains are not made up of cars, but of “coaches.”
By this time it was getting late, and after vainly trying to distinguish objects through streaked and misty glass, the girls gave up and leaned back with a sigh of tired but absolute content.
“Well, we’re here, and still going,” said Lucile, happily, feeling for her friend’s hands.
“We jolly well know that, my de-ar,” came in sweet, falsetto tones from Phil. “We ought to have no end of sport, you know; rippin’, what-what!”
“Bally goose!” murmured Jessie.
The reproof that rose to Mrs. Payton’s lips was drowned in a shout of laughter.
111CHAPTER XVITHE RED-LETTER DAY
“Hang the luck!” ejaculated Phil, flinging aside his book in disgust. “Here it is, our first day over, and look at it!” And, drawing aside the light chintz curtains, he disclosed a view that was, to say the least, very discouraging.
The rain came down in torrents, rebounding from the shining pavement and the no less shining umbrellas of passing pedestrians, with vicious little pops and hisses that sounded more like a storm of tiny daggers than of raindrops. As time went on, instead of lightening, the sky had grown murkier and murkier and darker and darker, until, in many parts of the hotel, people had been forced to turn on the lights. Over and about everything hung that moist, indefinably depressing atmosphere that makes one rail at fate and long for the blessing of the sun and a clear day.
Such was Phil’s enviable state of mind as he dropped the curtain and slumped back into his chair with an impatient grunt.
“’Tis rather mean, isn’t it?” drawled Jessie, dropping her book and looking at the disconsolate Phil lazily. “You don’t happen to have any more of those candies around you anywhere, do you, Evelyn?” she queried.
“Hardly. How long do you think they last when you’re around?” answered Evelyn, without raising her eyes from the magazine she was reading.
With a quick movement, Jessie reached over and pulled the candy box toward her before Evelyn could interfere.
“A-ha, I thought so!” she cried. “I was sure they couldn’t all have vanished so quickly, you unscrupulous—”112
“Beg pardon!” interrupted Evelyn, blandly.
“Well, you are, anyway,” Jessie maintained. “What do you mean, no more left? Here are half a dozen at least.”
“Well, you know you’ve eaten half a box already, Jessie,” Evelyn was beginning, severely, when Jessie interrupted.
“But, Evelyn, what else is there to do on a day like this?” she pleaded plaintively. “We can’t make any noise, for fear that we’ll annoy the other people, and we can’t go out——”
This was more than Phil could stand.
“Eat all the candy you want, Jessie, and when you’ve finished what you have, I’ll buy you some more,” and he sauntered out, hands in pocket, despite all his mother’s training, and whistling mournfully.
“Seems to me you have him very well tamed, Jessie,” gibed Evelyn. “Just the same, I’m going to pray for clear weather.”
“Why the sudden fervor?” asked Jessie, munching away happily.
“Because if you take Phil’s advice and eat all the chocolates that you want to while it rains, and it doesn’t clear up soon—well, all I have to say is——”
Jessie laughed, but added, more seriously, “I guess maybe you’re right, after all. There was a time when I’d nearly given up the habit, but now I’m just about as bad as ever. I’m afraid our guardian might not like it.”
“Of course she wouldn’t,” said Evelyn, seizing upon the opportunity eagerly. “Do you know, Jessie, there’s been so much going on and so much excitement that we have—well, rather lost sight of the camp-fire idea, don’t you think?”
“I was thinking just that very thing the other day,” replied Jessie, slowly, putting down a half-finished candy. “It ought to mean just as much to us now, and more, for that matter, than it ever did before——”113
“Girls, girls, girls!” sang out Lucile, bursting in upon them, with cheeks like two red roses, and waving something white aloft in the air. “We’ve got some letters, some beautiful, thick, booky letters, and you’ll never guess whom they’re from.”
The girls ran to the sofa, where Lucile had flung herself with a pile of letters in her lap, and hung over the back of it excitedly.
“Oh, go on, Lucy; show them to us!” cried Evelyn, as Lucile put both her hands teasingly over the letters, inviting them to “guess.”
“If you don’t hand over my property before I count five,” threatened Jessie, “I shall be compelled to use force.”
“Well, in that case,” laughed the threatened one, “I suppose I’ll have to——”
“Oh, Lucy, you know you always were my favorite che-ild,” begged Evelyn, melodramatically. “I’ll destroy the old will and make a new one, leaving everything——”
“To me,” finished Jessie, at the same time making a lunge at the tempting little pile of paper.
“Oh, go on!” cried Lucile, and, dodging out-stretched arms, made a dash for the door, only to be captured and brought back by two indignant and protesting girls to the sofa.
“Oh, we will be put out of the hotel,” gasped Lucile, between laughs. “We’re making no end of noise. Now, if you two girls will only sit down and behave like sensible—”
“Huh!” broke in Evelyn. “We were only demanding our just rights.”
“You would better hasten, Lucile Payton,” said Jessie, with her best heavy-villain scowl. “My patience is dangerously near an end.”
“All right,” Lucile capitulated, patting the sofa on either side of her invitingly. “Sit down here and I’ll hand them out just as they come.”
“And we’ll read each one aloud before we open the next one,” Jessie suggested, eagerly.114
“That’s right,” assented Evelyn. “Whom is the first one from, Lucy?”
“The first one,” drawled Lucile, turning it up with aggravating deliberation, “is for Evelyn, from——”
“Miss—er—our guardian,” cried Evelyn, snatching the envelope unceremoniously. “Oh, oh, oh! Got a letter opener, Lucy? Oh, all right; anything. Hairpin? Thanks! Oh, girls, what has she got to say?”
“I might suggest that the best way to find out is to read it,” said Jessie, and immediately became the recipient of a withering stare from Evelyn, who was opening the letter with trembling, clumsy fingers.
“My dear little girl,” she read and then stopped and looked from one to the other pleadingly. “I can’t do it; I can’t read it out loud——”
“Don’t try,” said Lucile, putting an arm around her. “I know exactly how you feel. We would better read them first and compare notes afterward.”
“That’s right,” agreed Jessie. “I didn’t think how hard it would be to read them out loud when I suggested it. Better give them all out together, Lucy.”
“Well, here’s one to you from your mother, I guess, Jessie, and another from your father, and one for you from your mother, Evelyn, and one for me——”
“From whom?” interrupted Jessie.
“Our guardian,” answered Lucile, touching it lovingly. “And here is yours, Jessie,” she added, handing her a letter in the well-known and well-loved handwriting. “Isn’t she dear to remember each one of us like that? And oh, here are whole stacks of letters from the girls—one from Margaret—here, Jess——” And so on until each had a little pile of her own.
“And whom is that from, Lucy?” asked Evelyn, as Lucile picked up the last letter, looked at the unfamiliar handwriting curiously, then looked again more closely, while the tips of her ears became very pink.115
“I—I don’t know,” she stammered. “It’s for me, and—oh, well, I’ll open it later on,” and she tucked it among the others, just to gain time, as she explained it to herself.
“No, you don’t! No, you don’t!” cried Evelyn. “We have stumbled upon a deep, dark mystery and it must be cleared up at once, at once. Come on, Lucy; who wrote that letter?”
“I tell you I don’t know myself, so how can I tell you?” cried Lucile, angry at herself for being so confused.
“If you don’t know whom it’s from, why do you get all red and snappy and try to hide it?” asked Evelyn, triumphantly. “’Fess up, Lucy. You might as well, first as last, for you can’t fool us.”
“Methinks,” began Jessie, in deep, stentorian tones, “that this writing seems strangely familiar. Where can I have seen it before? Ah, I have it!” Then, suddenly throwing her arms about Lucile in a strangling hug, she cried, “Oh, I knew it, I knew it! I knew he would just go crazy about you, like all the rest of us. He couldn’t help himself! And you never, never would believe anything could happen the way it does in novels—oh—oh——”
“Oh, I see it all! I see it all!” shouted Evelyn, suddenly springing up and whirling about the room, using her letters as a tambourine. “It’s Jessie’s cousin! He’s gone—he’s gone——”
“Girls, you are crazy, both of you!” cried Lucile, extricating herself with difficulty from Jessie’s strangle hold and smoothing back the hair that was tumbling down in the most becoming disorder—or so her two friends would have told you—while her laughing eyes tried hard to look severe. “Probably it isn’t from him at all, and if it is, why—why—well, it is,” she ended, desperately.
“Why, of course it is,” soothed Jessie; “but I don’t think you need worry about it not being from him——”
“Aren’t you going to read it over now?” broke in Evelyn. “Then you can tell us——”
“I wouldn’t tell you a thing,” said Lucile, driven to her last entrenchment; “and what’s more, I’m not going to116read it till I get good and ready, and not then if I don’t want to,” and she slipped her letter into her pocketbook, which she closed with a defiant little snap. “Now, what are you going to do about it?” she challenged, gaily.
“We might use force,” mused Jessie, meditatively.
“But you’re not going to, because you can’t,” Lucile declared, raising a round little arm not yet wholly free from last summer’s tan, for inspection. “Just look at that muscle,” she invited.
“Terrific!” cried Evelyn, in mock terror. “Guess we’d better think twice before we tackle that, Jessie.”
“Mere nothing!” sniffed Jessie, scornfully. “Now, if you want to see real muscle——”
“Oh, yes; we know all about that,” said Lucile, and, throwing an arm about each of the girls, she dragged them over to the settee, saying gaily, “What’s the use of having all this fuss about one old letter, when we have all the really good ones to read?”
The girls exchanged significant glances, but, never-the-less, followed Lucile’s example, opening one letter after another amid a shower of exclamations, comments, questions and quotations from this or that letter, till the other disturbing document was all but forgotten—except by Lucile.
After half an hour of delightful reveling in the news from Burleigh, which seemed so terribly far away, and in tender little messages from mothers and fathers and friends, Lucile looked up from her guardian’s letter, which she had just read for the third time.
“Girls,” she said, seriously, “I’m glad the letters came just as they did this morning. I’ve been thinking——”
“So were we,” broke in Evelyn, “just before you came in——”
“Wonderful!” murmured Jessie. “A red-letter day!”
The girls laughed, but Lucile went on:
“Just because we’re over here, so far away from home, is no reason for our forgetting or neglecting the least117little bit the rules of our camp-fire. In fact, I don’t think we deserve any credit for being good where Mrs. Wescott is; you simply can’t help yourself when our guardian is around.”
“That’s true enough,” agreed Jessie, and for a few minutes they sat silent, while the dreary, sodden, steaming streets of London, as, in their short experience, they had already begun to think of them, faded before the magic power of memory and they were once more back in camp—eating, swimming, walking, canoeing—subject always to theslightestword or wish of their lovely, smiling, cheery guardian, who always knew just what to do and just the time to do it.
“That’s all right for me,” began Jessie, heroically. “I’ve been eating candies and drinking sodas and reading so much that my eyes are nearly out of my head, but I don’t know what under the light of the sun you two have done.”
“Well, in the first place, I’ve become horribly rude,” confessed Lucile.
“We haven’t noticed it,” said Jessie.
“Well, I have,” she went on. “This morning an old lady dropped her handkerchief under my very eyes and I was in such a hurry to get to you that I didn’t stop to pick it up. And all my clothes need mending. That good waist is all ripped where you yanked the button off, Evelyn——”
“Oh, I did not,” began Evelyn, hotly.
“All right. I don’t care who did it; the fact remains that it is torn and I haven’t mended it, and I haven’t written half as much as I ought to, and—well, if I told you everything, I wouldn’t get through to-day.”
“And I use slang from morning to night, and I chewed a piece of gum that Phil gave me right out in the street, too,” began Evelyn, miserably.
“Oh, Phil!” said Jessie, disdainfully. “He would ruin anybody’s manners.”118
“All the more credit, then, in being good while he’s around,” laughed Lucile. “But, seriously, girls, don’t you think it would be a good plan to make up our minds to act just the same all the time as though our guardian were in the next room?”
“Let’s” said the girls. And so, with no more form or ceremony, the simple little compact was made, but it had taken firm and solid root, nevertheless, in the girls’ hearts.
“Hooray, people; here comes the sun!” cried Phil, bursting in upon them with a box of candy and a radiant smile. “I just waylaid Dad and asked him what was up if it cleared this afternoon, and he said, ‘Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, a look at the Thames, an auto ride.’ Hooray!”
The girls ran to the window, and, sure enough, the sun was beginning to shine, feebly and mistily, to be sure, but yet unmistakably.
They hugged each other joyfully and began to gather up their scattered belongings.
“It must be nearly lunch time,” sang Lucile. “We’ll go up and see what we look like and change our dresses and——”
“Then for the fun,” finished Evelyn.
“I say, Jessie, here’s the candy I promised you,” Phil called after her.
Jessie turned at the door and eyed the tempting box longingly.
“I’d love to, Phil,” she said, “but I can’t. Thanks just as much. I would spoil my lunch,” she added, lamely, making a hasty retreat.
“Well, of all the——” began Phil, at a loss to understand such insanity. Then, with a shrug of the shoulders, he voiced the eternal and oft-repeated masculine query:
“Aren’t girls the limit?”
119CHAPTER XVIITHE GLORY OF THE PAST
With light hearts and lighter feet the girls danced from the dark hotel to the sun-flooded street. Umbrellas had been down for half an hour and in some places the sidewalks were already partly dry. Smiles and friendly nods had once more become the fashion where before had been only grumbling discontent, with now and then a muttered, “Beastly rotten day, what?”
“Oh, what a dif-fer-ence!” cried Lucile, surveying the scene with delight. “I’d begun to be rather disgusted with London this morning, everything looked so dreary and forlorn. I wonder what can be keeping Dad and Mother,” she added, turning to the hotel entrance, while her foot tapped impatiently. “They said they’d be with us right away—oh, here they are! Speaking of angels——”
“And they’re sure to turn up,” said Phil, producing himself with startling suddenness from nowhere. “Bet you can’t guess where I’ve been.”
“Why work when you don’t have to?” philosophized Jessie. “If we don’t care where you’ve been, why bother to guess?”
“All right; I won’t let you in on the secret now, but when you do find out about it, you’ll wish you had been more civil,” Phil prophesied, darkly.
“Here is the car; come down, all of you,” commanded Mr. Payton; and, all else forgotten, they very willingly obeyed.
The machine was a big touring car, hired especially for the occasion, and the girls thrilled at the thought of seeing London in this fashion. In they tumbled joyfully, the big tonneau just accommodating five, while Mr. Payton took his place beside the driver.120
“Where to, sir?” asked the latter.
“Oh, all around,” said Mr. Payton, with a wave of his hand. “You know the points of interest better than I do. Only, of course, the young folks must stop for a long look at Westminster Abbey on the way back.”
“All right, sir,” said the man, with an understanding grin, and added, “For the whole afternoon?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Payton.
With that the chauffeur threw in the clutch and the big machine whizzed away through the crowded traffic bearing a very happy cargo.
The girls never forgot that afternoon. Impressions crowded so thick and fast upon them they had all they could do to gather them in, and Lucile more than once exclaimed, “Oh, I must come here some day when I have lots of time and just stand and look and look and look!”
The last time she had made this remark was when they were proceeding slowly through the crowded traffic of London Bridge.
“Do you remember what Mark Twain said about people in olden times being born on the bridge, living on it all their lives, and finally dying on it, without having been in any other part of the world?” said Phil, looking about him with lively interest.
“Well, I don’t blame them much,” Jessie answered; “it is fascinating.”
“Yes; only they don’t have the heads of Dukes and things on spikes the way they used to,” Evelyn complained.
“Goodness, Evelyn, you can’t expect everything! Besides, you wouldn’t actually like toseethose things,” cried Lucile, horrified.
“Well, maybe I wouldn’tliketo look at them,” Evelyn retracted, embarrassed by so many laughing eyes upon her. “But if they were there, I just couldn’t help looking, could I?” she finished, lamely.121
There was a shout, and Jessie exclaimed, “I do believe you’d enjoy being a cannibal, Evelyn. You and the black-skins certainly have a great many views in common.”
At last they had left the bridge behind and were once more speeding through the historic streets of London.
“The Abbey now, Dad?” Phil questioned, eagerly. “That’s what I came to Europe to see, you know.”
“Seems to me you’re getting mighty familiar,” commented Jessie. “Why don’t you call it by its full name?”
“Are we, Dad?” said Phil, ignoring the interruption.
“We are,” said Mr. Payton. “I’ve been wanting to see it, along with other things, all my life, Phil. You see, I wasn’t so lucky as you. However, I expect to make up for lost time.”
“Well, it’s a treat just to ride along the streets,” said Evelyn. “It’s so very different from anything I ever saw before.”
“Yes; you could imagine you were reading Dickens,” said Lucile, her eyes bright with the idea. “Why, that little shop might almost be the same one where——”
“Uncle Sol and Cap’n Cuttle hung out,” said Phil.
“Yes,” Jessie added, excitedly. “And you can almost see little Florence Dombey——”
“And her black-eyed maid, Susan,” said Evelyn, eagerly, and they all laughed delightedly at the picture.
“Gee, it does seem to make his books lots more real,” Phil chuckled. “Dear old Cap’n Cuttle and Uncle Sol’s nevvy, Wal’r—you remember him, don’t you?”
Of course they did. So on they went, most of the time in gales of merriment, as some house or modest little shop suggested some character or happening in the books of the great writer and humorist.
So happy were they in their imagining that they were almost sorry to find themselves at their destination.
“Oh, so soon?” cried Lucile, trying vainly to straighten the corners of her laughing mouth into some semblance122of the sobriety that befitted so great an occasion. “Oh, I never get enough of anything!” This last a protest against fate.
“Greedy child!” whispered Evelyn, lovingly, as the chauffeur opened the door. “It is a great deal better than having too much of everything,” she added, philosophically.
Phil was standing a little apart from the rest and was gazing with rapturous awe at this object of his boyhood adoration.
“Gee, Lucy, look at it!” he murmured, as his sister tucked her arm in his in mute understanding. “Think of the architect that could plan that magnificent structure!”
“It is wonderful,” Lucile agreed, softly, sobered by the beauty, the indefinite repose and dignity of the old, historic pile. “Phil, can you really imagine we are standing here in London, actually looking at Westminster Abbey? I can’t.”
“It sure does seem impossible, little sister,” Phil answered, understandingly. “But so it is. I guess Dad wants us now; he seems to be ready,” he added, as Mr. Payton beckoned to them.
“Yes,” began Evelyn, the irrepressible. “I want to see all the aesoph—sarcophaguses—gae——” she floundered hopeless and looked to the others for relief.
“Perhaps you mean sarcophagi,” Jessie suggested, loftily, while the others laughed at her discomfiture.
“Well, whatever it is, I want to see it,” she persisted, doggedly.
“Don’t worry; you shall,” Lucile promised. “If I know anything about it, you will have plenty of time to see everything, for I’m not going home till I have to.”
A moment more and they had stepped within the great, silent, shadow-filled cathedral. The lights and sunshine of the out-of-doors made the contrast more impressive and in the wonder of the moment the girls drew closer together. Gone was all their levity now, buried deep beneath an123overwhelming reverence for this great architectural masterpiece—exalted resting place of England’s noblest men.
The mellow, softly-tinted light from a hundred lofty windows bathed the clustering pillars, the magnificent nave and choir in a soft, roseate glow. To the girls it seemed that all the glory, all the romance, all the pomp and splendid grandeur of the ages lay embodied there.
Lucile’s hand was cold as it rested on her father’s. “Dad,” she breathed, “it almost makes you feel the wonderful scenes it has witnessed.”
“Do you wish to be shown about the Abbey?” The calm voice startled them and they turned sharply.
“Why, yes,” said Mr. Payton to the tall, thin, aesthetic-looking young man who stood regarding them blandly. “We will be glad to have you act as guide.”
This the young man did, and to such good effect that the girls and Phil were soon hanging on every word.
The magnificent choir held for them especial interest, for it was there had taken place the gorgeous coronations of the kings of England from the time of Harold.
“It seems like a fairy tale, anyway,” said Jessie, wide-eyed and pink-cheeked. “Why, to think of all the great monarchs of England—Richard the Third and Henry the Eighth and Queen Elizabeth—actually being crowned on this spot! Why, it is the next best thing to seeing the coronation itself!”
From there the party passed into the north transept, where lay, for the most part, the great statesmen and warriors of England.
But it was in the south transept, in the poets’ corner, where were erected memorials of the great English writers, that our party was most interested. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Thackeray, Dickens—magic names, names to conjure with!
Their English guide grew more eloquent and his face flushed with pride as he went into eulogies of these great men who had made England famous in the literary world.124
They lingered longer over Dickens’ tomb, visioning the man who, by the far-reaching genius of his pen, could sway multitudes to laughter or tears at will.
“And it is to Dickens, largely, that we owe the marvelous improvement in social conditions among the lower classes,” the young man finished. “If it had not been for the boldness of his pen, we might still be going blithely along, blind to the miserable, unjust conditions that so prevailed among the poor of his time.”
And so the afternoon wore blissfully on, till Mr. Payton drew out his watch and four pairs of eager young eyes followed the action fearfully.
“It can’t be late, Dad,” from Lucile.
“After six,” said Mr. Payton, and they groaned in unison. “I’m as sorry as you young folks to tear myself away, but I’m afraid we’ve seen all we can for to-day.”
Slowly, and each step a protest against a necessity that demanded their return so soon, the girls made their reluctant way to the door of the cathedral.
Before they stepped into the waiting machine, our party turned for one more look at the Abbey.
“Oh, Dad, did you ever see anything like it?” breathed Lucile.
“Thereisnothing like it,” her father answered, slowly. “It is testimony in stone, a silent epitome of the glorious, stately, romance-filled history of England!”