The woman in the deck chair next to mine stroked a strand of red hair from her forehead with a freckled hand.
“Oh, my head!”
“Have my smelling bottle.”
She took three long sniffs and then pointed the bottle across the deck.
“Awful woman!” indicating a loud, lounging woman in noisy conversation with the Captain.
“Discussing whisky! Irish against Scotch! Glad she prefers Irish, I should feel her preference for Scotch a desecration of my country.”
Captain crossed the deck. He looked enquiringly from one to the other of us.
“Miss Carr?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“This lady wants to meet you, her maiden name was Carr.”
The Captain indicated the loud woman with whom he had been discussing whisky. The Captain’s lady flopped noisily into the chair that the smelling bottle and the Scotch lady had hastily vacated.
“Any London relatives?” she asked sharply.
“None.”
“What are you by birth?”
“Canadian.”
She beckoned the Captain back to her side. Irish versus Scotch was again discussed—they forgot me.
Suddenly I felt awful. The former Miss Carr made a swift move. I felt the cold scratchy hardness of an immense sunburst which Mrs. Downey (the former Miss Carr) wore upon her breast, then I was in my berth, and my cabin was full of people but most full of Mrs. Downey. Sometimes I was there, sometimes not; finally I sailed out into blankness entirely.
In those times C.P.R. boats took ten days to cross the Atlantic. We were almost across before I woke. First I thought it was me crying, then I opened my eyes and saw it was Stewardess.
“Are you hurt?” She patted me and mopped herself. “How could your mother send you this great way alone?”
“Mother’s dead. I am older than I look.”
The Captain, doctor, Stewardess, and Mrs. Downey had been in conference. A girl belonging to no one and for the moment not even to herself had to be landed. It was a problem. Stewardess had volunteered to take me home with her for the week that she was in port and nurse me, but now I had waked up.
They carried me to the upper deck for air. We were lying in the Mersey, not landing our passengers till morning. The air revived me. Doctor said I might take the special boat train in the morning providing there was anyone going my way who would keep an eye on me. There was not, until Mrs. Downey made it her business and changed her route. She sent stewards scuttling with wires. Miss Green was to meet me at Euston. Just because a girl had her maiden name, Mrs. Downey made it her business to see I was delivered safe and sound into competent hands.
The ship’s little Irish doctor saw us comfortably tucked into our train. I heard Mrs. Downey say, “Then come on up, I’ll give you a time.”
The doctor waved his cap.
I could not lie back resting, as Mrs. Downey wanted me to. We were skimming across the Old World—a new world to me—entirely different, pretty, small. Every time I looked at Mrs. Downey she was looking at me. Suddenly she said, “You’re not a-goin’ to that Amelia person. You’re a-comin’ to me.”
“I’m promised to Miss Green, Mrs. Downey.”
“She’s no relative—bust the promise; I’ll fix ’er! ’Twon’t cost you nothin’ livin’ with me. You c’n go to your school, but nights and Sundays you’ll companion my little daughter.”
“Have you a daughter?”
“Same age as you—’flicted, but we’ll ’ave good times, you an’ me and my girl. That doctor chap is stuck on you. ’E tole me so. I was lookin’ for company for my Jenny. . . . Only jest ’appened . . . ’er ’fliction. . . .” She choked . . . snuffled.
As we pulled into Euston’s sordid outskirts of grime and factories the station’s canopied congestion threw a shadow of horror over me.
“That white-pinched little woman has green in her button hole, Mrs. Downey.”
“She’s not gittin’ you.”
Her fingers gripped my arm as in a vice.
“Miss Green?”
The two women stared at each other belligerently.
“She’s comin’ to me—been sick—not fit to be among strangers, she isn’t. I’m ’er friend.”
“I’m promised, Mrs. Downey. My people expect it.”
The wiry claw of the lesser woman wrenched me away so that I almost fell. I was clutched fiercely back to the scratchy sunburst, then released with a loud, smacking kiss.
“Any ’ow, come an’ see my little girl . . . she needs . . .”, the woman choked and handing me a card turned away.
“Frightful person! The entire platform must have heard that vulgar kiss,” gasped Miss Green.
“I was very ill on board; she was kind to me, Miss Green.”
“You must never see her again, one cannot be too careful in London.”
She glanced at the address on the card in my hand. “Brixton! Impossible!”
“I shall have to go just once to thank her, and to return her umbrella. She gave it me to carry while she took my heavier things.”
“You can post the umbrella. I forbid you to associate with vulgar people while living in my house.”
“I am going once.”
Our eyes met. It was well to start as I meant to continue. I was only Miss Green’s PG. My way, my life were my own: it was well she should understand from the start.
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