The Shuttle Part 11

"She did not care twopence for the lot of us," was his summing up. "She might have been nothing but the nicest possible warm-hearted nursemaid or a cottage woman who loved the child."

He was quite aware that though he had found himself more than once observing her, she herself had probably not recognised the trivial fact of his existing upon that other side of the barrier which separated the higher grade of pa.s.senger from the lower. There was, indeed, no reason why she should have singled him out for observation, and she was, in fact, too frequently absorbed in her own reflections to be in the frame of mind to remark her fellow pa.s.sengers to the extent which was generally customary with her. During her crossings of the Atlantic she usually made mental observation of the people on board. This time, when she was not talking to the Worthingtons, or reading, she was thinking of the possibilities of her visit to Stornham. She used to walk about the deck thinking of them and, sitting in her chair, sum them up as her eyes rested on the rolling and breaking waves.

There were many things to be considered, and one of the first was the perfectly sane suggestion her father had made.

"Suppose she does not want to be rescued? Suppose you find her a comfortable fine lady who adores her husband."

Such a thing was possible, though Bettina did not think it probable. She intended, however, to prepare herself even for this. If she found Lady Anstruthers plump and roseate, pleased with herself and her position, she was quite equal to making her visit appear a casual and conventional affair.

"I ought to wish it to be so," she thought, "and, yet, how disappointingly I should feel she had changed. Still, even ethical reasons would not excuse one for wis.h.i.+ng her to be miserable." She was a creature with a number of pa.s.sionate ideals which warred frequently with the practical side of her mentality. Often she used to walk up and down the deck or lean upon the s.h.i.+p's side, her eyes stormy with emotions.

"I do not want to find Rosy a heartless woman, and I do not want to find her wretched. What do I want? Only the usual thing--that what cannot be undone had never been done. People are always wis.h.i.+ng that."

She was standing near the second-cabin barrier thinking this, the first time she saw the pa.s.senger with the red hair. She had paused by mere chance, and while her eyes were stormy with her thought, she suddenly became conscious that she was looking directly into other eyes as darkling as her own. They were those of a man on the wrong side of the barrier. He had a troubled, brooding face, and, as their gaze met, each of them started slightly and turned away with the sense of having unconsciously intruded and having been intruded upon.

"That rough-looking man," she commented to herself, "is as anxious and disturbed as I am."

Salter did look rough, it was true. His well-worn clothes had suffered somewhat from the restrictions of a second-cla.s.s cabin shared with two other men. But the aspect which had presented itself to her brief glance had been not so much roughness of clothing as of mood expressing itself in his countenance. He was thinking harshly and angrily of the life ahead of him.

These looks of theirs which had so inadvertently encountered each other were of that order which sometimes startles one when in pa.s.sing a stranger one finds one's eyes entangled for a second in his or hers, as the case may be. At such times it seems for that instant difficult to disentangle one's gaze. But neither of these two thought of the other much, after hurrying away. Each was too fully mastered by personal mood.

There would, indeed, have been no reason for their encountering each other further but for "the accident," as it was called when spoken of afterwards, the accident which might so easily have been a catastrophe.

It occurred that night. This was two nights before they were to land.

Everybody had begun to come under the influence of that cheerfulness of humour, the sense of relief bordering on gaiety, which generally elates people when a voyage is drawing to a close. If one has been dull, one begins to gather one's self together, rejoiced that the boredom is over.

In any case, there are plans to be made, thought of, or discussed.

"You wish to go to Stornham at once?" Mrs. Worthington said to Bettina.

"How pleased Lady Anstruthers and Sir Nigel must be at the idea of seeing you with them after so long."

"I can scarcely tell you how I am looking forward to it," Betty answered.

She sat in her corner among her cus.h.i.+ons looking at the dark water which seemed to sweep past the s.h.i.+p, and listening to the throb of the engines. She was not gay. She was wondering how far the plans she had made would prove feasible. Mrs. Worthington was not aware that her visit to Stornham Court was to be unannounced. It had not been necessary to explain the matter. The whole affair was simple and decorous enough.

Miss Vanderpoel was to bid good-bye to her friends and go at once to her sister, Lady Anstruthers, whose husband's country seat was but a short journey from London. Bettina and her father had arranged that the fact should be kept from the society paragraphist. This had required some adroit management, but had actually been accomplished.

As the waves swished past her, Bettina was saying to herself, "What will Rosy say when she sees me! What shall I say when I see Rosy? We are drawing nearer to each other with every wave that pa.s.ses."

A fog which swept up suddenly sent them all below rather early. The Worthingtons laughed and talked a little in their staterooms, but presently became quiet and had evidently gone to bed. Bettina was restless and moved about her room alone after she had sent away her maid. She at last sat down and finished a letter she had been writing to her father.

"As I near the land," she wrote, "I feel a sort of excitement. Several times to-day I have recalled so distinctly the picture of Rosy as I saw her last, when we all stood crowded upon the wharf at New York to see her off. She and Nigel were leaning upon the rail of the upper deck.

She looked such a delicate, airy little creature, quite like a pretty schoolgirl with tears in her eyes. She was laughing and crying at the same time, and kissing both her hands to us again and again. I was crying pa.s.sionately myself, though I tried to conceal the fact, and I remember that each time I looked from Rosy to Nigel's heavy face the poignancy of my anguish made me break forth again. I wonder if it was because I was a child, that he looked such a contemptuous brute, even when he pretended to smile. It is twelve years since then. I wonder--how I wonder, what I shall find."

She stopped writing and sat a few moments, her chin upon her hand, thinking. Suddenly she sprang to her feet in alarm. The stillness of the night was broken by wild shouts, a running of feet outside, a tumult of mingled sounds and motion, a dash and rush of surging water, a strange thumping and straining of engines, and a moment later she was hurled from one side of her stateroom to the other by a cras.h.i.+ng shock which seemed to heave the s.h.i.+p out of the sea, shuddering as if the end of all things had come.

It was so sudden and horrible a thing that, though she had only been flung upon a pile of rugs and cus.h.i.+ons and was unhurt, she felt as if she had been struck on the head and plunged into wild delirium. Above the sound of the das.h.i.+ng and rocking waves, the straining and roaring of hacking engines and the pandemonium of voices rose from one end of the s.h.i.+p to the other, one wild, despairing, long-drawn shriek of women and children. Bettina turned sick at the mad terror in it--the insensate, awful horror.

"Something has run into us!" she gasped, getting up with her heart leaping in her throat.

She could hear the Worthingtons' tempest of terrified confusion through the part.i.tions between them, and she remembered afterwards that in the s.p.a.ce of two or three seconds, and in the midst of their clamour, a hundred incongruous thoughts leaped through her brain. Perhaps they were this moment going down. Now she knew what it was like! This thing she had read of in newspapers! Now she was going down in mid-ocean, she, Betty Vanderpoel! And, as she sprang to clutch her fur coat, there flashed before her mental vision a gruesome picture of the headlines in the newspapers and the inevitable reference to the millions she represented.

"I must keep calm," she heard herself say, as she fastened the long coat, clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering. "Poor Daddy--poor Daddy!"

Maddening new sounds were all about her, sounds of water das.h.i.+ng and churning, sounds of voices bellowing out commands, straining and leaping sounds of the engines. What was it--what was it? She must at least find out. Everybody was going mad in the staterooms, the stewards were rus.h.i.+ng about, trying to quiet people, their own voices shaking and breaking into cracked notes. If the worst had happened, everyone would be fighting for life in a few minutes. Out on deck she must get and find out for herself what the worst was.

She was the first woman outside, though the wails and shrieks swelled below, and half-dressed, ghastly creatures tumbled gasping up the companion-way.

"What is it?" she heard. "My G.o.d! what's happened? Where's the Captain!

Are we going down! The boats! The boats!"

It was useless to speak to the seamen rus.h.i.+ng by. They did not see, much less hear! She caught sight of a man who could not be a sailor, since he was standing still. She made her way to him, thankful that she had managed to stop her teeth chattering.

"What has happened to us?" she said.

He turned and looked at her straitly. He was the second-cabin pa.s.senger with the red hair.

"A tramp steamer has run into us in the fog," he answered.

"How much harm is done?"

"They are trying to find out. I am standing here on the chance of hearing something. It is madness to ask any man questions."

They spoke to each other in short, sharp sentences, knowing there was no time to lose.

"Are you horribly frightened?" he asked.

She stamped her foot.

"I hate it--I hate it!" she said, flinging out her hand towards the black, heaving water. "The plunge--the choking! No one could hate it more. But I want to DO something!"

She was turning away when he caught her hand and held her.

"Wait a second," he said. "I hate it as much as you do, but I believe we two can keep our heads. Those who can do that may help, perhaps. Let us try to quiet the people. As soon as I find out anything I will come to your friends' stateroom. You are near the boats there. Then I shall go back to the second cabin. You work on your side and I'll work on mine.

That's all."

"Thank you. Tell the Worthingtons. I'm going to the saloon deck." She was off as she spoke.

Upon the stairway she found herself in the midst of a struggling panic-stricken mob, tripping over each other on the steps, and clutching at any garment nearest, to drag themselves up as they fell, or were on the point of falling. Everyone was crying out in question and appeal.

Bettina stood still, a firm, tall obstacle, and clutched at the hysteric woman who was hurled against her.

"I've been on deck," she said. "A tramp steamer has run into us. No one has time to answer questions. The first thing to do is to put on warm clothes and secure the life belts in case you need them."

At once everyone turned upon her as if she was an authority. She replied with almost fierce determination to the torrent of words poured forth.

"I know nothing further--only that if one is not a fool one must make sure of clothes and belts."

"Quite right, Miss Vanderpoel," said one young man, touching his cap in nervous propitiation.