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.
“Stop screaming,” Betty said mercilessly to the woman. “It's idiotic—the more noise you make the less chance you have. How can men keep their wits among a mob of shrieking, mad women?”
That the remote Miss Vanderpoel should have emerged from her luxurious corner to frankly bully the lot of them was an excellent shock for the crowd. Men, who had been in danger of losing their heads and becoming as uncontrolled as the women, suddenly realised the fact and pulled themselves together. Bettina made her way at once to the Worthingtons' staterooms.
There she found frenzy reigning. Blanche and Marie Worthington were darting to and fro, dragging about first one thing and then another. They were silly with fright, and dashed at, and dropped alternately, life belts, shoes, jewel cases, and wraps, while they sobbed and cried out hysterically. “Oh, what shall we do with mother! What shall we do!”
The manners of Betty Vanderpoel's sharp schoolgirl days returned to her in full force. She seized Blanche by the shoulder and shook her.
“What a donkey you are!” she said. “Put on your clothes. There they are,” pushing her to the place where they hung. “Marie—dress yourself this moment. We may be in no real danger at all.”
“Do you think not! Oh, Betty!” they wailed in concert. “Oh, what shall we do with mother!”
“Where is your mother?”
“She fainted—Louise——”
Betty was in Mrs. Worthington's cabin before they had finished speaking. The poor woman had fainted, and struck her cheek against a chair. She lay on the floor in her nightgown, with blood trickling from a cut on her face. Her maid, Louise, was wringing her hands, and doing nothing whatever.
“If you don't bring the brandy this minute,” said the beautiful Miss Vanderpoel, “I'll box your ears. Believe me, my girl.” She looked so capable of doing it that the woman was startled and actually offended into a return of her senses. Miss Vanderpoel had usually the best possible manners in dealing with her inferiors.
Betty poured brandy down Mrs. Worthington's throat and applied strong smelling salts until she gasped back to consciousness. She had just burst into frightened sobs, when Betty heard confusion and exclamations in the adjoining room. Blanche and Marie had cried out, and a man's voice was speaking. Betty went to them. They were in various stages of undress, and the red-haired second-cabin passenger was standing at the door.
“I promised Miss Vanderpoel——” he was saying, when Betty came forward. He turned to her promptly.
“I come to tell you that it seems absolutely to be relied on that there is no immediate danger. The tramp is more injured than we are.”
“Oh, are you sure? Are you sure?” panted Blanche, catching at his sleeve.
“Yes,” he answered. “Can I do anything for you?” he said to Bettina, who was on the point of speaking.
“Will you be good enough to help me to assist Mrs. Worthington into her berth, and then try to find the doctor.”
He went into the next room without speaking. To Mrs. Worthington he spoke briefly a few words of reassurance. He was a powerful man, and laid her on her berth without dragging her about uncomfortably, or making her feel that her weight was greater than even in her most desponding moments she had suspected. Even her helplessly hysteric mood was illuminated by a ray of grateful appreciation.
“Oh, thank you—thank you,” she murmured. “And you are quite sure there is no actual danger, Mr.——?”
“Salter,” he terminated for her. “You may feel safe. The damage is really only slight, after all.”
“It is so good of you to come and tell us,” said the poor lady, still tremulous. “The shock was awful. Our introduction has been an alarming one. I—I don't think we have met during the voyage.”
“No,” replied Salter. “I am in the second cabin.”
“Oh! thank you. It's so good of you,” she faltered amiably, for want of inspiration. As he went out of the stateroom, Salter spoke to Bettina.
“I will send the doctor, if I can find him,” he said. “I think, perhaps, you had better take some brandy yourself. I shall.”
“It's queer how little one seems to realise even that there are second-cabin passengers,” commented Mrs. Worthington feebly. “That was a nice man, and perfectly respectable. He even had a kind of—of manner.”
--
CHAPTER IX
LADY JANE GREY
It seemed upon the whole even absurd that after a shock so awful and a panic wild enough to cause people to expose their very souls—for there were, of course, endless anecdotes to be related afterwards, illustrative of grotesque terror, cowardice, and utter abandonment of all shadows of convention—that all should end in an anticlimax of trifling danger, upon which, in a day or two, jokes might be made. Even the tramp steamer had not been seriously injured, though its injuries were likely to be less easy of repair than those of the Meridiana.
“Still,” as a passenger remarked, when she steamed into the dock at Liverpool, “we might all be at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean this morning. Just think what columns there would have been in the newspapers. Imagine Miss Vanderpoel's being drowned.”
“I was very rude to Louise, when I found her wringing her hands over you, and I was rude to Blanche,” Bettina said to Mrs. Worthington. “In fact I believe I was rude to a number of people that night. I am rather ashamed.”
“You called me a donkey,” said Blanche, “but it was the best thing you could have done. You frightened me into putting on my shoes, instead of trying to comb my hair with them. It was startling to see you march into the stateroom, the only person who had not been turned into a gibbering idiot. I know I was gibbering, and I know Marie was.”
“We both gibbered at the red-haired man when he came in,” said Marie. “We clutched at him and gibbered together. Where is the red-haired man, Betty? Perhaps we made him ill. I've not seen him since that moment.”
“He is in the second cabin, I suppose,” Bettina answered, “but I have not seen him, either.”
“We ought to get up a testimonial and give it to him, because he did not gibber,” said Blanche. “He was as rude and as sensible as you were, Betty.”
They did not see him again, in fact, at that time. He had reasons of his own for preferring to remain unseen. The truth was that the nearer his approach to his native shores, the nastier, he was perfectly conscious, his temper became, and he did not wish to expose himself by any incident