THE SECOND-CLASS PASSENGER
Up to a certain point the voyage was like all other voyages.
During the first two days there were passengers who did not appear on deck, but as the weather was fair for the season of the year, there were fewer absentees than is usual.Indeed, on the third day the deck chairs were all filled, people who were given to tramping during their voyages had begun to walk their customary quota of carefully-measured miles the day.
There were a few pale faces dozing here and there, but the general aspect of things had begun to be sprightly.Shuffleboard players and quoit enthusiasts began to bestir themselves, the deck steward appeared regularly with light repasts of beef tea and biscuits, and the brilliant hues of red, blue, or yellow novels made frequent spots of colour upon the promenade.
Persons of some initiative went to the length of making tentative observations to their next-chair neighbours.The second-cabin passengers were cheerful, and the steerage passengers, having tumbled up, formed friendly groups and began to joke with each other.
The Worthingtons had plainly the good fortune to be respectable sailors.They reappeared on the second day and established regular habits, after the manner of accustomed travellers.Miss Vanderpoel's habits were regular from the first, and when Salter saw her he was impressed even more at the outset with her air of being at home instead of on board ship.Her practically well-chosen corner was an agreeable place to look at.Her chair was built for ease of angle and width, her cushions were of dark rich colours, her travelling rugs were of black fox fur, and she owned an adjustable table for books and accompaniments.She appeared early in the morning and walked until the sea air crimsoned her cheeks, she sat and read with evident enjoyment, she talked to her companions and plainly entertained them.
Salter, being bored and in bad spirits, found himself watching her rather often, but he knew that but for the small, comic episode of Tommy, he would have definitely disliked her.The dislike would not have been fair, but it would have existed in spite of himself.It would not have been fair because it would have been founded simply upon the ignoble resentment of envy, upon the poor truth that he was not in the state of mind to avoid resenting the injustice of fate in bestowing multi-millions upon one person and his offspring.He resented his own resentment, but was obliged to acknowledge its existence in his humour.He himself, especially and peculiarly, had always known the bitterness of poverty, the humiliation of seeing where money could be well used, indeed, ought to be used, and at the same time having ground into him the fact that there was no money to lay one's hand on.He had hated it even as a boy, because in his case, and that of his people, the whole thing was undignified and unbecoming.It was humiliating to him now to bring home to himself the fact that the thing for which he was inclined to dislike this tall, up-standing girl was her unconscious (he realised the unconsciousness of it) air of having always lived in the atmosphere of millions, of never having known a reason why she should not have anything she had a desire for.Perhaps, upon the whole, he said to himself, it was his own ill luck and sense of defeat which made her corner, with its cushions and comforts, her properly attentive maid, and her cold weather sables expressive of a fortune too colossal to be decent.
The episode of the plump, despairing Tommy he had liked, however.There had been a fine naturalness about it and a fine practicalness in her prompt order to the elderly nurse that the richly-caparisoned donkey should be sent to her.This had at once made it clear to the donor that his gift was too valuable to be left behind.
"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 passenger 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 passengers 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 wishing her to be miserable." She was a creature with a number of passionate 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 ship'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 wishing that."