175CHAPTER XXVTHE THUNDERBOLT
Breakfast was over, and the girls had hidden their pretty evening coats under long linen dusters. For, as Mrs. Payton had explained, they would have no time to change for the evening, and they must look their best—to which, needless to say, the girls agreed with enthusiasm.
“And we can wear those new motor bonnets we bought in England the day before we sailed,” Lucile rejoiced. So the insistent honk of the motor horn found them all cloaked and bonneted, and ready for the day’s fun.
“Come on,” cried Lucile, pulling Jessie away from the mirror by main force; “you look wonderful, Jessie,” and down the stairs they ran and out onto the veranda, where a good many of the guests had assembled to see them off.
The boys took immediate possession of them and hustled them, willy-nilly, into the car, despite their vehement protestations that they must say “good-byes” to “lots of people.”
“They’ll be here when you get back,” Phil argued, “and mother’s already been waiting half an hour. Time’s up!” And off they went with great noise and laughter and waving of hands to the group on the porch.
“Oh, what a perfect day!” cried Lucile, settling back between Evelyn and Jessie in the tonneau. As usual, Mr. Payton was in front with the driver, the three girls were squeezed tightly in the rear seat, Mrs. Payton occupied one of the collapsible seats, and Jack and Phil—well, they were anywhere they could get.
Jack had earlier proposed the use of his two-seater for Lucile and himself, but Mr. Payton had demurred, smilingly preferring “safety-first.”176
But now, the floor of the machine being not the most comfortable place in the world, Phil objected. “Say, Dad, why don’t you let Jack take Lucy in his car? He’s a fine driver, and he’d stick close to us all the time.”
“I think it would be safe enough,” Mrs. Payton added. “Mr. Turnbull says he has driven the car for years.”
Mr. Payton hesitated, giving the command to slow up, nevertheless. “Well, perhaps it would be better,” he agreed at last, but very reluctantly; “if you will promise to stay close to us all the time.” This last to Jack.
Jack promised readily and happily, and they turned back. A few minutes later they were on their way again, everybody comfortable, everybody happy, especially Lucile and Jack.
“I didn’t dare hope for this,” he whispered, as they followed in the wake of the big touring car. “The hat’s class!” he added, admiringly.
So the morning was spent in touring the great city. The girls were fascinated by the noise and bustle, the number and magnificence of the public buildings, and, most of all, by the gay little restaurants and cafes lining both sides of the broad boulevards.
“Imagine this at night!” said Jack, hugely enjoying Lucile’s unaffected delight in everything she saw. “Can’t you just see the lights spring up and the theater crowds gathering?”
“And we are going to see it all!” cried Lucile, clapping her hands and fairly dancing with delight. “Oh, Jack, I simply can’t wait; I can’t!”
Noon had come and passed. They had luncheon in a wonderful little restaurant near the Rue de la Paix, where they had enjoyed to the full of music and “all that,” and now the two automobiles, little and big, drew up before the magnificent piece of architecture, the Louvre.
Lucile caught her breath as she and Jack joined the group already assembled on the sidewalk. “The pictures you see give you absolutely no idea of it,” she breathed; “it must have been planned by an artist.”177
“Yes; and see how big it is,” said Phil. “It’s going to take us a long time to explore it.”
“Explore is hardly the word——” Jessie was beginning, when Evelyn interrupted, “It doesn’t makeanydifference what you call it, but I’m just going to look and look and look till I can’t look any more.”
“Well, that’s what it is here for,” laughed Mr. Payton; “and now I’ll tell you what I am going to do with you young people. When we get you well started on your sight-seeing, Mrs. Payton and I are going to run away to hunt up this tragic hero and reinstate him and his sweetheart, if it lies within our power. We’ll be back in an hour or two, and I guess there will be plenty to interest you for that length of time. So, in with you; there’s no time to lose,” and he propelled his laughing flock before him up the broad stone steps.
Once inside, as may be easily imagined, the girls experienced no trouble in finding things to absorb their interest, and it was hard for them to take time to say good-by to their chaperons. The latter laughingly left them to their own devices, feeling sure that they were safe for the time being, at any rate.
“Talk about spending an hour here! Why, I could spend a week in just one room!” exclaimed Jessie, after half an hour of blissful wandering. “I never saw so many things all at once in my life.”
“I suppose you girls have never visited our great museums at home?” Jack questioned. “I have often felt that way myself; a person could spend a month just studying the things in one room, and still not know all he should about them.”
“By home I suppose you mean New York,” said Jessie; then added, demurely, “You forget, sir, that we are simple country maids, who have hardly stepped outside of Burleigh until this summer.”
“Yes, I guess that’s one reason why we like everything so much,” said Evelyn, naively.178
“Oh, the mummies, the mummies! I must see the mummies!” cried Lucile, startling the others with the suddenness of her outburst. “Oh, Jack, please take me to the mummies.”
“There, there; she shall have her mummies if she wants them,” said Jack, soothingly. “If they haven’t enough, I’ll head an expedition to Egypt for more right away, so don’t worry; you shall have all you want.”
“I wonder what you’d do if I took you up,” laughed Lucile, as Jack hurried her off in the direction of the Egyptian section. “Egypt is a long way from here, you know.”
“I came to Europe for you; Egypt isn’t so much further,” he teased.
A few minutes later Lucile and her friends were standing before the glass cases containing the swathed forms of some of Egypt’s ancient rulers, encased in their vividly painted coffins.
They could not wonder enough at the miracle that had been wrought—the bodies of men who had ruled mighty Egypt four thousand years ago still in existence for twentieth-century moderns to marvel at! Besides the mummies, there were the numerous curiously wrought vases and utensils that had been placed in the tombs alongside the mummies for their use after death. The little party might easily have spent all their allotted time in the examination of these and other interesting relics, had not Jack hurried them away. “I realize we can’t begin to see all there is to see on our first trip,” he said, “but we can do our best, anyway.”
They visited the art gallery, filled with marvelous paintings and sculptures; went through the room where old-time and modern musical instruments were gathered together; and so on through a very world of wonders, of which, as Evelyn plaintively remarked, “they had only time to see enough to make them want to see more.” So interested were they that it was four o’clock before they realized that it was long past the time set for Mr. and179Mrs. Payton’s return. But suddenly this fact dawned on Phil, and he drew Lucile aside and asked her in a whisper what she supposed could be keeping them.
Lucile looked worried. “You don’t think anything could have happened; an accident, perhaps?” she questioned, anxiously. “The streets were awfully crowded, you know, when we came down.”
“No, I don’t think there has been anything like that; probably it’s taken them longer than they thought to look up that Charloix fellow,” he answered, trying to be reassuring. “Any way, don’t let’s say anything to the rest. There’s no use making everybody miserable.”
So half an hour passed; then an hour; and the brother and sister could keep their anxiety to themselves no longer.
“What do you suppose can be keeping them?” Lucile wondered, as they all gathered round in anxious conference. “They surely never would have stayed away of their own accord, and it’s getting really late.”
“We’ve been here about three hours now, haven’t we?” Jack added. “And they ought to have been here an hour ago at the latest. Oh, well, we can expect them any minute now.”
“Suppose we go outside and see if we can find any sign of them,” Evelyn suggested. “It’s hot in here.”
So out they went, making a very handsome group as they looked eagerly in all directions, vainly hoping to catch a glimpse of the big gray car.
“Phil, I’m terribly worried,” Lucile murmured drawing closer to her brother and slipping her hand into his for comfort.
Phil squeezed the little hand reassuringly. “Half an hour from now we’ll be laughing at our fears,” he said, cheerfully, trying hard at the same time to convince himself.
“Seems to me there’s a good deal more noise than there was, Jack. Why are all those boys running around like chickens with their heads cut off? They all have papers, too.” Jessie was frankly puzzled.180
“They are newsboys, little coz, and they wouldn’t be flattered by our comparison. They are yelling what, in United States, would be ‘extra!’ I’ll get a paperand seeif I can puzzle out some of the French,” and he strolled down to intercept one of the hurrying urchins.
Lucile watched him as he sauntered leisurely back, wondering, in her distracted little brain, how he could be interested in anything when he ought to be as anxious as she. “But it isn’t his mother and father,” she explained to herself.
Meanwhile, Jack’s puzzled frown had turned to a look of absolute dismay and incredulity as he read.
“What is it?” Phil asked. “Everybody seems to be getting more excited and worked up every minute. Look at that group of men over there. Does the paper throw any light on the subject, Jack?”
“Well, I should say so!” cried Jack, in huge excitement. “Look here, all of you!” And while they gathered around him, expecting they knew not what calamity, he brokenly read the headlines: “Austria declares war on Servia. Open break with Russia apprehended. Germany sides with Austria——”
“War, war?” Phil echoed, dazedly. “Why, it’s just as old Major B—— prophesied, only sooner. Can you read any more, Jack?”
“Oh, do, do!” urged Lucile, forgetting her anxiety in this overwhelming almost unbelievable news. “There must be more of it you can make out.”
The familiar honk of an automobile horn jerked their eyes from the paper to the curb, where the big gray touring car had silently drawn up. Lucile snatched the paper none too ceremoniously from Jack’s hand and flew to the machine, joyfully relieved to find her father and mother safe and sound. She was closely followed by the others.
“Mother, Dad, I’m so glad to see you’re back all right; we were awfully worried!” she gasped. “But have you seen the paper? Oh, what does it mean?”181
“It means,” said Mr. Payton, slowly, and with grim emphasis, “it means that the sooner we leave the country behind and set foot on good old United States soil the better it will be for all of us. Come, get in.”
“But, Dad, how about dinner, and the theater, and all the other things we were going to do?” Lucile wailed. “Have we got to give them all up?”
“Better to lose a little pleasure than find ourselves stranded in a country at war and perhaps be unable to leave it. We haven’t any time to lose.” It was the first time Lucile could remember ever hearing that tone of command in her father’s voice, and somehow she knew it must be obeyed without question.
Silently, and as yet unable to comprehend the full extent of what had occurred, the party, which had started out so merrily and under such bright auspices in the morning, returned to their hotel.
Only once did Lucile shake off her preoccupation long enough to ask for M. Charloix.
“Did you find him, Dad? We thought you might have had some trouble, you were so long getting back.”
“Oh, it did take more time than we expected, but it was worth the trouble when we did find him.” In spite of his anxiety, Mr. Payton’s eyes twinkled at the memory.
“But what did he do?” Phil broke in. “How did he take the news?”
“Running, I guess. Before I had half finished explaining to the lawyer, he was off on a dead run for the chateau. Didn’t even wait to hear about the will.”
“Then he doesn’t know yet?” Phil cried.
“Of course he does, silly,” said Lucile, with the air of one who knows all there is to know of such matters. “Don’t you suppose Jeanette has told him long before this?”
Again Phil retreated gracefully. “Well, you know the lady,” he admitted.
The rest of the trip passed quickly in visioning the joyful reunion of the two young lovers, and it was not till182they were fairly upon the inn that the grim specter of war again intruded itself.
They found the same feverish excitement there as elsewhere, for the newspapers had arrived with the mail and the dire news spread like wildfire.
As Jack took his leave, saying that he had promised his uncle to spend the night with him, but would return the first thing in the morning, uncle and all, to accompany them home, he drew Lucile aside for a moment.
“Mighty hard luck, not seeing the lights, after all,” he whispered, “but there may be other times.”
“I don’t know when we will ever get to Europe again, and there was so much to see yet—Switzerland, and Rome, and—and——” She struggled bravely to choke back the tears of bitter disappointment that rose to her eyes. “I—I don’t see—why they had to have an old war—anyway,” she sobbed.
For a moment they were alone, and very gently he took her hand in his. “Don’t you worry,” he soothed. “Some time, after we get home, perhaps you will come to New York, and then I’ll show you Broadway. It’s better than anything you can get over here, anyway! Here, I have your handkerchief,” and he abstracted a filmy little square, all lace and no center, from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” she said, and smiled uncertainly through her tears. “You must think I’m very childish and foolish—and—everything——”
“Especially the last——”
“Lucile, Lucile, Dad wants to know where you are.” It was Phil’s voice.
“I’m coming,” called Lucile; then, turning to Jack, “Good-by,” she murmured, suddenly very reluctant to have him go.
“Until to-morrow,” he whispered, and was gone.
183CHAPTER XXVITHROUGH SHROUDING MISTS
To the girls, the week that followed seemed like some vivid, disjointed nightmare. They were hurried from Paris to London and from London to Liverpool, along with crowds of worried, anxious Americans, who, like themselves, were fleeing from the unexpected cataclysm.
After much difficulty, Mr. Payton finally succeeded in securing two staterooms, second cabin, while Jack and his Uncle were lucky enough to get one not very far removed from our party.
“But how are we going to manage with only two cabins for six of us; little ones at that, from your account?” Mrs. Payton protested, in dismay. “Why, the three girls and I will have to occupy one between us!”
“Can’t be helped,” replied Mr. Payton, and then added, with intense earnestness, “I don’t believe that one of you realize yet the magnitude of this tragedy that menaces Europe. If you did, you would thank your lucky stars every minute of the day that you have the chance to leave England for our own blessed country, no matter what the cost or inconvenience. Why, within a month this whole continent will be involved in war. There are people now besieging the booking offices by the hundreds who would be glad and thankful to find room in the steerage. If we had not started when we did, we would be among them.”
Lucile shivered. “Oh, Dad, it does make the thought of home seem good,” she said.
Their ship was to sail at nine o’clock the following morning, and long before the appointed time the girls were up and ready for the voyage.
“What a difference!” mused Lucile, looking wistfully out upon a dreary, leaden prospect. “Even the weather seems to be in sympathy with the country’s trouble.”184
Jessie adjusted her hat soberly and thoughtfully before she spoke. “Yes,” she said, at last, “one day it’s all sunshine and happiness, and the next—oh, girls, I’m absolutely miserable!”
“What good does that do?” queried Evelyn, snapping her bag shut with an air of finality. “Besides, you’re only breaking one of the camp-fire’s strictest laws, you know.”
“Yes; that sounds all right, but it’s pretty hard to be cheerful when everything’s going wrong,” said Jessie, pessimistically. “I don’t notice that anybody looks particularly happy these days, anyway.”
“That’s no reason why we shouldn’t be the exception,” said Lucile, shaking off the weight of depression with an effort and smiling bravely. “You never know what you can do till you try.”
“Miss Howland always used to say that. We’ll see her and the girls soon, anyway, and that’s one big consolation,” said Jessie, brightening perceptibly.
“Somewhere the sun is shining,” began Lucile.
“Somewhere the world is gay,” added Jessie.
Evelyn flung her arms about her friends. “Somewhere the bells are chiming——”
“And that’s in the U. S. A.,” finished Lucile, and they went down laughing.
Mr. Payton met them at the foot of the stairs, and the frown on his anxious face turned to a smile as he heard the merry laughter.
“It does me good just to look at you,” he said, sincerely.
It was their third night out. In accordance with the strict orders of the captain, there were no lights on board, for there might be hostile warcraft lurking near. So the ship stole silently as a ghost through the mists that shrouded her.
Lucile, Jack and Evelyn were leaning against the rail, talking in subdued tones, awed by the grandeur of the drama being enacted before their eyes.
“Your uncle says that people farther inland are having all sorts of trouble trying to get to the coast,” said Lucile,185“and now I’m beginning to realize the truth of what Dad said about being lucky to get off as we did. Oh, but the cabin is awful!” she sighed, naively.
Jack laughed understandingly. “I guess you must be rather crowded.”
“Oh, but we oughtn’t to mind anything now that we’re out of danger,” Evelyn broke in.
“Yes; but I’m not so sure we are out of danger,” Jack protested. “The captain’s caution seems to show that there is still something to fear.”
“You mean we might be captured?” Lucile questioned, eagerly. “That would be some adventure. You might almost imagine we were living in the Middle Ages——”
“Lucile,” Evelyn was starting to remonstrate, when an excited voice whispered, huskily, “So you’re here, are you?” and two figures loomed before them out of the mist. “It’s I, Phil,” said one of them.
“We were wondering where you and Jessie had gone,” Lucile began.
“Did you know we nearly ran down a hostile cruiser? At least, that’s what the captain thinks it was,” he interrupted, excitedly. “If we had had lights aboard, they’d have caught us sure, take it from me.”
“Whichreminds me,” said Phil, “that Mother sent me after you girls; she says it’s too damp on deck.”
Reluctantly, they turned from the spacious deck to the close, stuffy atmosphere of the cabin.
Lucile paused at the top step of the companionway to look wistfully up into Jack’s sober eyes. “I—I don’t want to go down there,” she said.
“And I don’t want you to,” he replied. Then, with an earnestness that left no doubt of his sincerity, “Lucile, I’d give a lot right now to have you safe on shore.”
186CHAPTER XXVIIHOME
The sun rose gloriously golden, dispelling the stubborn mist with an army of riotous sunbeams, that danced and shimmered over the waves in wild defiance of threatening wind and lowering sky. The decks and railings of the steamer, still wet from the clinging mist, shone and gleamed and sparkled in the sun like one gigantic diamond. Even the sailors sang as they worked, and one of them went so far as to attempt a sailor’s hornpipe on the slippery deck, to the great amusement of his mates.
The girls had slept but little during the long night, and even when, from sheer exhaustion, they had dropped off into a troubled doze, weird, distorted fancies came to torment them into wakefulness, to stare, wide-eyed and fearful, into the inky blackness of the cabin.
So it was that, with the first streak of dawn, Lucile, who had been able to lie still no longer, softly rose, fearing to awake the others, and began to dress.
“I’m glad you are up, Lucy. I haven’t slept all night,” whispered Jessie, and the dark circles under her eyes bore unmistakable testimony to the truth of what she said. “I was afraid to get up for fear of waking Evelyn.”
“You needn’t have worried,” and Evelyn, who had been lying with her face to the wall, turned over wearily. “I’ve been afraid to sleep—oh, girls, I’ve had such awful dreams!” And she covered her face with her hands to keep out the memory.
“We’ll all feel better when we get on deck,” Lucile prophesied, hopefully. “Don’t let’s talk so loud; Mother is asleep.”
“No, I’m not,” said a tired, fretful voice from the lower berth. “As soon as you girls get through, I’ll get up.”187
It seemed to the girls that morning as though they would never finish dressing. Their clothes, their hairpins, even their combs and brushes, evaded them with demoniacal persistence, hiding under things, falling under the berths, rolling into corners, and otherwise misbehaving themselves, until the girls’ nerves were all on edge and they were dangerously near the verge of tears.
It was Lucile’s undying sense of humor that finally saved the day.
“I feel just like the Prince in the Prince and the Pauper, when the rat made a bed of him,” she said. “Things can’t be any worse, so it stands to reason they’ve got to get better.”
“Let’s hope so, anyway,” said Evelyn, halfway between laughter and tears. “I feel just now as though I’d like to hit somebody.”
“I guess it’s time we left, then,” laughed Lucile, and, suiting the action to the word, she opened the door and stepped outside, the others following.
“If I look the way I feel, I must be a sight,” moaned Jessie. “I hope the boys aren’t on deck.”
“Girls, look!” cried Lucile, pointing dramatically to the shaft of sunlight filtering through the companionway. “The sun, the blessed old sun—it’s out!”
“Wonder of wonders!” cried Jessie, as they rushed up the steep steps. “Let’s go look.”
The sunshine fell on them in a warm, life-giving flood. It brought out the luster in their hair; it gleamed in their eyes; it sent the warm color tingling to their faces; it made them want to sing, to dance, to shout with gladness.
“Oh to think that we were growling! To think that we dared to be down-hearted when this was waiting for us!” cried Lucile, joyfully. “We don’t deserve our blessings.”
“Of course you don’t,” said a cheerful voice behind them. “How’s this for a day?”
“That’s just what we’ve been raving about,” said Jessie, as she hugged her cousin ecstatically.188
“Hey, look out, young lady!” cautioned Jack, gaily. “Not everybody on board knows we’re related, remember.”
“Well, what they don’t know won’t hurt them,” she retorted. “Besides, I’d hug the ship’s cook to-day if he happened to be anywhere around.”
“I’m flattered!” laughed Jack, just as Phil greeted him with a bang on the shoulder that Lucile declared could be heard in the galley.
“Say, let’s play ‘ring around a rosy,’” he suggested. “We’ve got to do something to celebrate.”
“How exciting!” Jessie began, but before she could utter further protest she was jerked into the circle and was soon whirling round madly with the rest until they had to stop from exhaustion and laughter.
“It’s good we stopped just when we did,” said Lucile, peeping around a corner of the cabin. “I see old lady Banks in the distance. ‘Pray, and may I inquire the cause of all this frivolity?’” and she imitated the old lady so perfectly that they went off into gales of laughter.
“You’ve sure missed your vocation, Lucile,” said Jack, when they stopped to breathe.
“That’s what we all tell her,” agreed Evelyn. “In Burleigh——”
“Doesn’t it make me homesick, just to think of it!” exclaimed Jessie.
“You haven’t long to wait now,” cried Lucile, springing to her feet and searching the sky-line as though she hoped to see beyond it. “A few hours more, and—the harbor!”
Great crowds thronged the deck of the steamer. It had been announced that fifteen minutes more would bring them in sight of land—their land. Eyes, old and young, were straining for that first glimpse of a country never so dear to them as now.
“There it is! It’s there, it’s there!” came in excited tones from different parts of the deck, the shrill tones of women and children mingling with the deeper voices of men.189
“Yes, now you can see it,” Mr. Payton was saying. “That tiny speck—that’s America.”
The word sped like magic through the crowd, breaking the tension. They all went mad with joy. Men shook hands with perfect strangers; women hugged each other, murmuring incoherently, and mothers gathered their little ones to them, weeping openly.
“Hello, Lucy; that you? Where did you go, anyway?” said Jessie, surreptitiously wiping her eyes. “I was looking for you all over.”
“Oh, just around,” Lucile answered, waving her hand vaguely, “congratulating everybody. Did you ever see such a wonderful time in all your life, Jessie? One little chap over there, who is crazy to see his father, asked what the noise was all about. ‘Is it because I’m going to see Daddy?’ he asked, and when his mother couldn’t answer him, she was crying so, he put his little face against hers and begged her not to. ‘It’s just because I’m happy, little lad; so happy,’ she said, and—and—oh, why is it that when you’re happiest, you have to go and cry?” And she dashed the tears away fiercely.
Some hours later the crowd again assembled on deck, everything in readiness to land. The beautiful city towered, majestic and imposing, before them, and the lofty buildings, with the sun full upon them, stood out clear and gleaming against the gray-blue of the sky.
The girls, who had been standing close together, drew a sigh and turned to each other with tear-wet eyes and bursting hearts.
“Well, girls, have you got any luggage?” came in Phil’s matter-of-fact voice. “If you have, hand it over.”
“I’ll take Lucile’s,” said Jack, and, as she suited the action to the word, he cried joyfully, “We’re home, Lucile; we’re home!”
And Mr. Payton, regarding the little group with loving eyes, added, very reverently, “Thank God!”