A Voyage of Consolation by Sara Jeannette Duncan (top 10 most read books in the world .txt) 📖

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"Perhaps it is," I said, and I _may_ have smiled.

"I should hate to pay the price."

Mr. Page's tone distinctly expressed that the society of earls and countesses would be, to him, contaminating.

Again I made no reply. I wanted the American accent to drop out of the conversation, if possible, but Fate had willed it otherwise.

"I sai, y'know, awfly hard luck, you're havin' to settle down amongst these barbarians again, bai Jove!"

I am not quite sure that it's a proper term for use in a book, but by this time I was _mad_. There was criticism in my voice, and a distinct chill as I said composedly, "You don't do it very well."

I did not look at him, I looked at the lamp, but there was that in the air which convinced me that we had arrived at a crisis.

"I suppose not. I'm not a marquis, nor the end man at a minstrel show. I'm only an American, like sixty million other Americans, and the language of Abraham Lincoln is good enough for me. But I suppose I, like the other sixty million, emit it through my nose!"

"I should be sorry to contradict you," I said.

Arthur folded his arms and gathered himself up until he appeared to taper from his stem like a florist's bouquet, and all the upper part of him was pink and trembling with emotion. Arthur may one day attain corpulence; he is already well rounded.

"I need hardly say," he said majestically, "that when I did myself the honour of proposing, I was under the impression that I had a suitable larynx to offer you."

"You see I didn't know," I murmured, and by accident I dropped my engagement ring, which rolled upon the carpet at his feet. He stooped and picked it up.

"Shall I take this with me?" he asked, and I said "By all means."

That was all.

I gave ten minutes to reflection and to the possibility of Arthur's coming back and pleading, on his knees, to be allowed to restore that defective larynx. Then I went straight upstairs to the telephone and rang up the Central office. When they replied "_Hello_," I said, in the moderate and concentrated tone which we all use through telephones, "Can you give me New York?"

Poppa was in New York, and in an emergency poppa and I always turn to one another. There was a delay, during which I listened attentively, with one eye closed--I believe it is the sign of an unbalanced intellect to shut one eye when you use the telephone, but I needn't go into that--and presently I got New York. In a few minutes more I was accommodated with the Fifth Avenue Hotel.

"Mr. T.P. Wick, of Chicago," I demanded.

"_Is his room number Sixty-two?_"

That is the kind of mind which you usually find attached to the New York end of a trans-American telephone. But one does not bandy words across a thousand miles of country with a hotel clerk, so I merely responded:

"Very probably."

There was a pause, and then the still small voice came again.

"_Mr. Wick is in bed at present. Anything important?_"

I reflected that while I in Chicago was speaking to the hotel clerk at half-past nine o'clock, the hotel clerk in New York was speaking to me at eleven. This in itself was enough to make our conversation disjointed.

"Yes," I responded, "it is important. Ask Mr. Wick to get out of bed."

Sufficient time elapsed to enable poppa to put on his clothes and come down by the elevator, and then I heard:

"_Mr. Wick is now speaking_."

"Yes, poppa," I replied, "I guess you are. Your old American accent comes singing across in a way that no member of your family would ever mistake. But you needn't be stiff about it. Sorry to disturb you."

Poppa and I were often personal in our intercourse. I had not the slightest hesitation in mentioning his American accent.

"_Hello, Mamie! Don't mention it. What's up? House on fire? Water pipes burst? Strike in the kitchen? Sound the alarm--send for the plumber--raise Gladys's wages and sack Marguerite_."

"My engagement to Mr. Page is broken. Do you get me? What do you suggest?"

I heard a whistle, which I cannot express in italics, and then, confidentially:

"_You don't say so! Bad break?_"

"Very," I responded firmly.

"_Any details of the disaster available? What?_"

"Not at present," I replied, for it would have been difficult to send them by telephone.

I could hear poppa considering the matter at the other end. He coughed once or twice and made some indistinct inquiries of the hotel clerk. Then he called my attention again.

"_Hello!_" he said. "_On to me? All right. Go abroad. Always done. Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome, and the other places. I'll stand in. Germanic sails Wednesdays. Start by night train to-morrow. Bring momma. We can get Germanic in good shape and ten minutes to spare. Right?_"

"Right," I responded, and hung up the handle. I did not wish to keep poppa out of bed any longer than was necessary, he was already up so much later than I was. I turned away from the instrument to go down stairs again, and there, immediately behind me, stood momma.

"Well, really!" I exclaimed. It did not occur to me that the privacy of telephonic communication between Chicago and New York was not inviolable. Besides, there are moments when one feels a little annoyed with one's momma for having so lightly undertaken one's existence. This was one of them. But I decided not to express it.

"I was only going to say," I remarked, "that if I had shrieked it would have been your fault."

"I knew everything," said momma, "the minute I heard him shut the gate. I came up immediately, and all this time, dear, you've been confiding in us both. My dear daughter."

Momma carries about with her a well-spring of sentiment, which she did not bequeath to me. In that respect I take almost entirely after my other parent.

"Very well," I said, "then I won't have to do it again."

Her look of disappointment compelled me to speak with decision. "I know what you would like at this juncture, momma. You'd like me to get down on the floor and put my head in your lap and weep all over your new brocade. That's what you'd really enjoy. But, under circumstances like these, I never do things like that. Now the question is, can you get ready to start for Europe to-morrow night, or have you a headache coming on?"

Momma said that she expected Mrs. Judge Simmons to tea to-morrow afternoon, that she hadn't been thinking of it, and that she was out of nerve tincture. At least, these were her principal objections. I said, on mature consideration, I didn't see why Mrs. Simmons shouldn't come to tea, that there were twenty-four hours for all necessary thinking, and that a gallon of nerve tincture, if required, could be at her disposal in ten minutes.

"Being Protestants," I added, "I suppose a convent wouldn't be of any use to us--what do you think?"

Momma thought she could go.

There was no need for hurry, and I attended to only one other matter before I went to bed. That was a communication to the _Herald_, which I sent off in plenty of time to appear in the morning. It was addressed to the Society Editor, and ran as follows:

"The marriage arranged between Professor Arthur Greenleaf Page, of Yale University, and Miss Mamie Wick, of 1453, Lakeside-avenue, Chicago, will not take place. Mr. and Mrs. Wick, and Miss Wick, sail for Europe on Wednesday by s.s. Germanic."

I reflected, as I closed my eyes, that Arthur was a regular reader of the _Herald_.


CHAPTER II.

We met poppa on the Germanic gangway, his hat on the back of his head and one finger in each of his waistcoat pockets, an attitude which, with him, always betokens concern. The vessel was at that stage of departure when the people who have been turned off are feeling injured that it should have been done so soon, and apparently only the weight of poppa's personality on its New York end kept the gangway out. As we drove up he appeared to lift his little finger and three dishevelled navigators darted upon the cab. They and we and our trunks swept up the gangway together, which immediately closed behind us, under the direction of an extremely irritated looking Chief Officer. We reunited as a family as well as we could in connection with uncoiled ropes and ship discipline. Then poppa, with his watch in his hand, exclaimed reproachfully, well in hearing of the Chief Officer, "I gave you ten minutes and you _had_ ten minutes. You stopped at Huyler's for candy, I'll lay my last depreciated dollar on it."

My other parent looked guiltily at some oblong boxes tied up in white paper with narrow red ribbon, which, innocently enough I consider, enhance the value of life to us both. But she ignored the charge--momma hates arguments.

"Dear me!" she said, as the space widened between us and the docks. "So we are all going to Europe together this morning! I can hardly realise it. Farewell America! How interesting life is."

"Yes," replied poppa. "And now I guess I'd better show you your cabins before it gets any more interesting."

We had a calm evening, though nothing would induce momma to think so, and at ten o'clock Senator J.P. Wick and I were still pacing the deck talking business. The moon rose, and threw Arthur's shadow across our conversation, but we looked at it with precision and it moved away. That is one of poppa's most comforting characteristics, he would as soon open his bosom to a shot-gun as to a confidence. He asked for details through the telephone merely for bravado. As a matter of fact, if I had begun to send them he would have rung off the connection and said it was an accident. We dipped into politics, and I told the Senator that while I considered his speech on the Silver Compromise a credit to the family on the whole, I thought he had let himself out somewhat unnecessarily at the expense of the British nation.

"We are always twisting a tail," I said reproachfully, "that does nothing but wag at us."

This poppa reluctantly admitted with the usual reference to the Irish vote. We both hoped sincerely that any English friends who saw that speech, and paused to realise that the orator was a parent of mine, would consider the number of Irish resident in Illinois, and the amount of invective which their feelings require. Poppa doesn't really know sometimes whether he is himself or a shillelagh, but whatever his temporary political capacity he is never ungrateful. He went on to give me the particulars of his interview with the President about the Chicago Post Office, and then I gradually unfolded my intention of preparing our foreign experiences as a family for publication in book form. While I was unfolding it poppa eyed me askance.

"Is that usual?" he inquired.

"Very usual indeed," I replied.

"I mean--under the circumstances?"

"Under what circumstances?" I demanded boldly. I knew that nothing would induce him to specify them.

"Oh, I only meant--it wasn't exactly my idea."

"What was your idea--exactly?" It was mean of me to put poppa to the blush, but I had