They found Mrs. Halliday amusing herself with a glass of cracked ice, giving casual attention the while to a very long story told by a garrulous fellow-passenger in a wadded hood.
“Oh, Mamma,” Blythe cried, perching upon the extension foot of her mother’s chair, “why didn’t you and Mr. DeWitt stay longer? And how did it happen that nobody else got wind of it? I don’t believe a single person knows what we’ve been about! And oh! we have had such a glorious time! It was like being a bird! Only that little girl in the steerage oughtn’t to be there, and Mr. Grey and I are going to see what can be done about it, and–”
The wadded hood had fallen silent, and now its wearer rose, with an air of resignation, and carried her tale to another listener, while Mr. Grey also moved away, leaving Blythe to tell her own story.
They were great friends, Mrs. Halliday and this only child of hers, and well they might be; for, as Blythe had informed Mr. Grey early in their acquaintance; “Mamma and I are all there are of us.”
As she sat beside this best of friends, – having dropped into the chair left vacant by the wadded hood, – Blythe lived over again every experience and sensation of that eventful afternoon, and with the delightful sense of sharing it with somebody who understood. And, since the most abiding impression of all had been her solicitude for the little steerage passenger, she found no difficulty in arousing her mother to an almost equal interest in the child’s fate.
And presently, when the cornet player passed them, with the air of short-lived importance which comes to a ship’s cornet three times a day, and, stationing himself well aft, played the cheerful little tune which heralds the approaching dinner-hour, Blythe slipped her hand into her mother’s and said:
“We’ll do something about that little girl; won’t us, Mumsey?”
Upon which Mrs. Halliday, rising, and patting the rosy cheek which she used to call the “apple of her eye,” said:
“I shouldn’t wonder if us did, Blythe.”
CHAPTER II
THE LITTLE SIGNORINA
Blythe lay awake a long time that night, thinking, not of the bridge nor of the “crow’s nest,” not of the Captain nor of the supposed Hugh Dalton, but of the child in the steerage. How stifling it must be down there to-night! It was hot and airless enough here, where Blythe had a stateroom to herself, – separated from her mother’s by a narrow passageway, and where the port-holes had been open all day. Now, to be sure, they were closed; for the sea was rising, and already the spray dashed against the thick glass. Oh, how must it be in the steerage! And how did it happen that that nice woman had been obliged to take her little Signorina in such squalid fashion to la bella Italia?
Blythe fell asleep with the sound of creaking timbers in her ears, as the good ship strained against the rising sea, and when the clear note of the cornet, playing the morning hymn, roused her from her dreams, the roaring of wind and waves sent her thoughts with a shock of pity to the little steerage passenger shut up below. For with such a sea as this the waves must be sweeping the lower deck, and there could be no release for the poor little prisoner.
“Vhy you not report that veather from the lookout?” the Captain asked with mock severity as Blythe appeared at the breakfast table.
The racks were on, and the knives and forks had begun their time-honoured minuet within their funny little fences. The amateur “lookout” glanced across the table at her friend and ally the poet, who nodded encouragingly as she answered:
“Oh, we knew the Captain knew all about it!”
“You think de Capitän know pretty much eferything, wie es scheint!” was the reply, uttered in so deep a guttural that Blythe knew the old Viking did not take very seriously the “bit of weather” that seemed to her so violent. In fact, he owned as much before he had finished his second cup of coffee.
Yet when she came up the companionway after breakfast, she found a stout rope stretched across the deck from stanchion to stanchion to hold on by, the steamer chairs all tied fast to the rail that runs around the deckhouse, and every preparation made for rough weather.
It was not what a sailor would have called a storm, but the sea was changed enough from the smiling calm of yesterday. Not many passengers were on deck, half a dozen, only, reclining in their chairs in the lee of the deckhouse, close reefed in their heavy wraps; while here and there a pair of indefatigable promenaders lurched and slid along the heaving deck arm in arm, or clung to any chance support in a desperate effort to keep their footing.
Blythe had to buffet her way lustily as she turned a corner to windward. Holding her golf-cape close about her and jamming her felt hat well down on her head, she made her way to the narrow passageway forward of the wheel-house where one looks down into the steerage. The waves were dashing across the deck, which was deserted excepting for one or two dark-browed men crouched under shelter of the forecastle.
There was a light, drizzling rain, and now and then the spray struck against her face. Blythe looked up at the “crow’s nest,” which was describing strange geometrical figures against the sky. The lookouts in their oil-coats did not seem in the least to mind their erratic passage through space. She wished it were eight-bells and time for them to change watch; it was always such fun to see them running up the ladder, hand over hand, their quick, monkey-like figures silhouetted against the sky.
How nobly the great ship forged ahead against an angry sea, climbing now to the crest of a big wave, and giving a long, shuddering shake of determination before plunging down into a black, swirling hollow! And how the wind and the waters bellowed together!
The Captain was on the bridge in his rubber coat and sou’-wester. He had said this would not last long, and he had stopped for a second cup of coffee before leaving the table. All the same, Blythe would not have ventured to accost him now, even if he had passed her way.
Presently she returned under shelter of the awning and let Gustav tuck her up in her chair to dry off. And Mr. DeWitt came and sat down beside her and instructed her in the delectable game of “Buried Cities,” in which she became speedily so proficient that, taking her cue from the lettering on one of the lifeboats, she discovered the city of Bremen lying “buried” in “the sombre menace of the sea!”
After a while, Gustav appeared before them, bearing a huge tray of bouillon and sandwiches, with which he was striking the most eccentric angles; and Blythe discovered that she was preposterously hungry. And while her nose was still buried in her cup, she espied over its rim a pair of legs planted well apart, in the cause of equilibrium, and the big, pleasant voice of Mr. Grey made itself heard above wind and sea, saying, “Guess where I’ve been.”
“In the smoking-room,” was the prompt reply.
“Guess again.”
“On the bridge, – only you wouldn’t dare!”
“Once more.”
“Oh, I know,” Blythe cried, setting her thick cup down on the deck, and tumbling off her chair in a snarl of steamer-rugs; “You’ve been down in the steerage finding out about the little Signorina!”
“Who told you?”
“You did! You looked so pleased with yourself! Oh, do tell me all about her!”
“Well, I’ve had a long talk with the woman. Shall we walk up and down?”
And off they went, with that absence of ceremony which characterises life on shipboard, leaving Mr. DeWitt to bury his cities all unaided and unapplauded. Then, as the two walked up and down, – literally up and down, for the ship was pitching a bit, and sometimes they were labouring up-hill, and sometimes they were running down a steep incline, – as they walked up and down Mr. Grey told his story.
The woman, Giuditta, had confided to him all she knew, and he had surmised more. Giuditta had known the family only since the time, three years