CHAPTER XX.ON THE OTHER SIDE
The voyage was a short one, but to Louie it seemed an eternity. The weather was very rough, and almost with the first beat of the engine as the ship left the wharf Mrs. Grey succumbed to sea-sickness and never left her state-room during the voyage. A part of the time she was delirious, and raved of her dead husband and her home in Merivale, begging Louie to take her back there to die, or stop the ship, whose rolling and pitching was killing her. Nearly all the second-class passengers were ill except Louie, who, with a mighty will, withstood the sickness and ministered to her mother night and day until her strength gave way, and the young doctor whom Herbert knew found her lying insensible on the floor when he came to see her mother. It made no difference to him whether his patients were first or second-class; and if it had, Louie’s face and helplessness would have enlisted his sympathy. He knew nothing of her acquaintance with Herbert, although he had exchanged a few words with that young man as he left the vessel. She was a stranger in trouble, and he cared for her till she was able toresume her post at her mother’s side. As the voyage neared its end, and the sea became smoother, Louie hoped her mother would improve. But she seemed to have no life left and was as helpless as a child.
“Oh, what shall I do when we get there?” Louie often asked herself; and when at last the tug from the great ship was sailing slowly into port, there was not on board so forlorn and hopeless a creature as the young girl who stood looking wistfully at the shore and the people upon it, some waiting for expected friends, and some of them the custom-house officers, waiting to pounce upon their prey the moment they landed.
It was these Louie dreaded, not knowing what she had to expect or how to cope with them. She had nothing dutiable, but she knew there must be a delay before she could get her baggage. And what, meantime, should she do with her mother, who could scarcely hold up her head, and was taking little heed of what was passing around her?
“God help me,” she whispered as she went to her mother and said, “Mother, we are at the landing. Can you walk?”
“No,” came faintly from the sick woman. “You go and leave me here to die.”
At this point an officer, who chanced to be near, said to Louie:
“Go on shore and get some one to bring a chair. She is too ill to walk.”
“Oh, thank you! And will you stay by her?” Louie said.
It was a great deal to ask an officer of a British steamer to do, but something in Louie’s face and eyes pleaded for her, and the man answered with a smile:
“I will see that she is not left alone; and, stay, there is a deck steward now, just off the boat. Hurry and speak to him. Say I sent you.”
Louie needed no further bidding, but made her way on shore as quickly as she could for the crowd jostling each other, and each intent upon his or her own business. The deck steward had disappeared, and, turn which way she would, Louie could see no one on whom she dared call for help. The crowd was pushing her farther from the boat. Friends were greeting friends; there were calls for hands to help with the baggage, and to Louie it seemed as if pandemonium reigned, and she felt her strength giving way, when suddenly heaven opened before her as Fred Lansing put both his hands upon her shoulders, and said, not “Louie,” as Herbert had done, but “Miss Grey, you are here. What can I do for you?”
She did not stop to ask why he was there, or how he knew she was there, but answered:
“I am trying to find some one to help mother. She is sick on the boat.”
He asked no more questions, but seemed to knowexactly what to do. Passing his arm around Louie, who, he saw, was near fainting, he said:
“Take me to your mother, and don’t be afraid. I will see to it.”
Louie could never remember exactly what he did, or how it was done. She only knew that in a short time her mother was on shore, in a carriage nearly as luxurious and easy as their own had been. Then Mr. Lansing said to her:
“Come with me, please, and show me your baggage.”
She went with him and felt herself growing stronger as she saw how cool and masterful he was, and how every one listened to him. Returning with her to the carriage, he said:
“Give me your keys, please. Those custom-house officers will ask for them. I will send you to the hotel, and join you there later.”
He spoke a few words to the driver, touched his hat to the ladies, and walked rapidly back to where bags and boxes were being opened, and brandy and tobacco and dynamite looked for by the officers.
Mrs. Grey was wholly bewildered and half unconscious when the carriage reached the hotel, from which a lackey came out, and was joined by one or two more when Louie gave the names, “Mrs. and Miss Grey.” The former was taken carefully into the house and up to the second floor to a large, airy room with which a smaller room communicated. Ahighly respectable-looking woman, who called herself Mrs. Brown, came in, and offered her services in getting Mrs. Grey into bed, where she dropped asleep at once.
Turning to Louie, the woman said: “If Miss will allow me, I will suggest that she, too, go to bed in the next room. You look wholly, utterly exhausted. I will sit with your mother till the gentleman comes.”
Louie shook her head, thinking she must wait till Mr. Lansing came, to know what it all meant. These handsome rooms she had not ordered, and this woman, whose attentions were almost obsequious was a puzzle to her. Was there a mistake and had she and her mother been taken for some distinguished and expected guests, and what would the people say, if they knew they were only the widow and daughter of a bankrupt?
“I must stay with mother,” she said, “and I don’t believe these rooms were meant for us.”
“Yes, they were,” the woman replied, “if you are Mrs. and Miss Grey, from America. The young gentleman was very particular about them. Your cousin, perhaps?”
Louie did not answer. Her head was in a whirl, and she felt so dizzy and faint and tired that she made no remonstrance when Mrs. Brown suggested again that she lie down in the next room.
“I’ll take the lounge, so as to be ready to get upthe moment mother wants me, or Mr. Lansing comes,” she said.
She took the lounge, which was so wide and comfortable, and the cushions were so soft, and she was so tired, that she fell into a heavy sleep, from which she did not waken until it was dark, and she heard voices in the next room. Fred Lansing and a stranger were talking together, and the latter, who she guessed was a physician, said:
“I hope it is nothing more serious than nervous prostration and extreme exhaustion, caused by severe sea-sickness. After a few days’ rest you can safely take her to London. I will send a good nurse, if you wish it.”
They were talking of her mother, she knew, and in a moment she was in the room, looking at Fred Lansing with her great brown eyes full of inquiry and entreaty.
“I think this young lady needs some attention,” Fred said, and Louie felt her wrist grasped in a strong hand which held her a moment, while the doctor counted her pulse and studied her face.
Then, releasing her, he said, with a laugh:
“Needs a good dinner more than anything, and then a good night’s rest. She has youth and health.”
He would have liked to have added “beauty,” for Louie’s face stirred even his sixty-year-old heart a little.
“She shall have the dinner at once,” Mr. Lansing said, bowing him out, and returning to Louie, who felt that she did not know exactly where she was or why she was there.
One fact stood distinctly before her. They could not afford all this luxury. Perhaps Mr. Lansing did not know what had happened, and how poor they were, and she must tell him.
“Mr. Lansing,” she began, when he said to her, “We will go to dinner as soon as Brown comes up to stay with your mother.”
“Mr. Lansing, I don’t know how you happened to come to meet us. But am so glad you did. I think I was nearly crazy with fright when I met you, and you have been so kind since, but I must tell you. Don’t these rooms cost a great deal of money?”
“Why, no; not so very much,” he answered, and she continued:
“This is the Northwestern, isn’t it? We expected to go to some cheap place, if I could find it. Maybe you don’t know how poor we are, and father is dead—failed, and couldn’t pay, do you know?”
Her face was crimson with shame as she talked, and when she was through she covered it with her hands and cried like a child.
Fred would like to have taken her hands from her face and kissed her tears away, so fast had his love grown for this little girl since he last saw her inMerivale. He could not forget her, and the bit of worn linen he had purloined was kept sacred for her sake, because it was all he had as a souvenir of her except the memory of her bright face and beautiful eyes, which had always brightened when he came and been downcast when he looked at her.
“If my cousin were not in the field before me, I believe I could win her,” he had often said to himself, wondering how it fared with the young people, and if the secret were still kept from the public.
He had heard from Herbert several times after leaving Merivale, and in his letters there was always a mention of Louie. It was Herbert, too, who had first written him news of the failure, saying very little of Mr. Grey’s delinquencies, and nothing of Louie, except that she was keeping up bravely. He had said that Mr. Blake was assignee, and Nancy Sharp preferred creditor, and Fred had laughed immoderately as he recalled the red-armed woman with her twenty hard silver dollars which had been the rounds so many times, and hoped she had received them intact. From Boston and Worcester papers he learned a good deal which Herbert had not told him, but it was from Mr. Blake that he received full particulars in response to a letter sent to the assignee. He knew of the sale of the piano and wheel and diamonds and horses, and Louie’s wish to sell the house, and it was at his instigation that Mr. Blake bought it in his own name, to blind the people,and then resold it to Fred, whose injunction was “Keep me out of sight at all hazards.”
“Perhaps I am rash,” he said to Miss Percy and his mother, “but I cannot begin to spend my income, and a few thousands may as well be sunk in Merivale as anywhere.”
When Mr. Grey died it was Mr. Blake who wrote the particulars to Fred, and in his letter no mention was made of Herbert, nor had there been in any of the correspondence. Evidently the engagement was still a secret, if, indeed, it were not broken. Fred thought the latter contingency possible, knowing Herbert’s nature and his fear of his father.
It was Fred who encouraged Miss Percy to insist upon Louie’s coming abroad as soon as possible, and then went to meet the ship in which she was to sail. He had not expected to find Mrs. Grey so ill, and at first all his care was given to her. Now, however, as she was sleeping quietly, he had a little time for Louie, and when she told him of her poverty, and asked if he knew of her father’s failure and death, he said to her:
“Yes, I think I know everything. Mr. Blake has kept us posted. I know what you did to save your father, and what you have done to pay his debts. You have been a brave girl, and I want to help you, and that is why I came to meet you, knowing as I did how forlorn it would be for you to land alone in a foreign country and encounter those sharks at theCustom House. Miss Percy thought of coming with me, but that was not necessary. This is the Northwestern, and these rooms are perhaps a trifle more expensive than you would have chosen. But for the present you are my guests. We are old acquaintances, and Herbert will be glad to know you are comfortable. You and he are good friends still?”
Fred had not hinted a word of the engagement, but he felt that he must know something from which to draw a conclusion, and said what he did to Louie, who, without thinking what his question implied, answered at once:
“Oh, yes, good friends still and always will be. We agreed to that. He came to the boat to see us off, which was very kind of him. Do you hear from him often?”
Fred could scarcely answer for the gladness beating in his heart. Surely Louie’s words meant that whatever had been between herself and Herbert was over now, and they were only good friends. Still, he would go slowly and bide his time. She was young and he was not very old. She had that idea of paying her father’s debts in her mind, and until that was given up he must watch over and help her without her knowing it. She told him of the stranger who had bought their house for ten thousand dollars, which had gone far toward paying the smaller debts.
“We had to keep some to live on. Mr. Blakesaid we could as it was ours to do with as we pleased, but I shall pay it back. It was very kind in the stranger to let us stay in the house and I shall pay him the rent. Mr. Blake would not tell his name, nor where he lived, but I wrote to him just before I left home, and I hope he will answer me.”
“You wrote to him?” Fred asked, with a glad light in his eyes. “I am sure he will be pleased to get your letter. Perhaps he had heard what a heroic little girl you were and wanted to help you; but here comes Brown, and now for that dinner—your first on English soil. I hope you will like it.”
She could not help liking it, and felt her strength and life coming back to her, while Fred saw the change in her face and eyes, and thought how fair she was, and thought, too, of a time in the future when she would be fairer still, because of the great love with which he would encircle her, taking every care away and making her life all a holiday.
They had hoped Mrs. Grey would rally the next day sufficiently to sit up a little, but she didn’t; nor did she seem to realize where she was, but talked of Merivale and her old home and her husband, who seemed to be with her. Still the physician said there was no danger in moving her after a little, they were so near the train, and she would have every possible comfort in the special car in which the journey to London was finally accomplished, easily and quickly.
Once when they stopped at a station, a dispatch was handed to Fred, who, after reading it, seemedvery happy and almost gay, until London was reached.
It was a cold, raw day, and a fog was settling in the streets through which they drove very slowly in the large, roomy carriage in which Mrs. Grey half sat, half lay among cushions and shawls, and attended by the nurse who accompanied them from Liverpool.
Very anxiously Louie peered out into the darkness and fog, seeing nothing distinctly until they drew up suddenly before a brilliantly lighted hotel, where many hands were extended to carry Mrs. Grey to rooms far more luxuriously furnished than those in Liverpool. There was a salon and two sleeping-rooms and bath attached, and into one of the sleeping-rooms Mrs. Grey was taken and laid upon the bed, saying as she felt the warmth of the soft pillow and blankets around her:
“This is like home in the best room. Let’s stay here awhile. I’m so tired, and the ship rolled so terribly.”
Nothing surprised her, nor mattered, so long as Louie was with her; nor did she open her eyes when a voice different from Louie’s or Fred’s or the nurse’s said to her:
“How are you feeling, Mrs. Grey? Don’t you remember me?”
Louie, who was in the other bedroom, heard and recognized the voice, and hurrying into her mother’s room was met and embraced by Miss Percy.