The Agony Column/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
WORDS are futile things with which to attempt a description of the feelings of the girl at the Carlton as she read this, the last letter of seven written to her through the medium of her maid, Sadie Haight. Turning the pages of the dictionary casually, one might enlist a few—for example, amazement, anger, unbelief, wonder. Perhaps, to go back to the letter a, even amusement. We may leave her with the solution to the puzzle in her hand, the Saronia a little more than a day away, and a weirdly mixed company of emotions struggling in her soul.
And leaving her thus, let us go back to Adelphi Terrace and a young man exceedingly worried.
Once he knew that his letter was delivered, Mr. Geoffrey West took his place most humbly on the anxious seat. There he writhed through the long hours of Wednesday morning. Not to prolong this painful picture, let us hasten to add that at three o'clock that same afternoon came a telegram that was to end suspense. He tore it open and read:
- Strawberry Man: I shall never, never forgive, you. But we are sailing tomorrow on the Saronia. Were you thinking of going home soon?
Thus it happened that, a few minutes later, to the crowd of troubled Americans in a certain steamship booking office there was added a wild-eyed young man who further upset all who saw him. To weary clerks he proclaimed in fiery tones that he must sail on the Saronia. There seemed to be no way of appeasing him. The offer of a private liner would not have interested him.
He raved and tore his hair. He ranted. All to no avail. There was, in plain American, “nothing doing!”
Damp but determined, he sought among the crowd for one who had bookings on the Saronia. He could find, at first, no one so lucky; but finally he ran across Tommy Gray. Gray, an old friend, admitted when pressed that he had a passage on that most desirable boat. But the offer of all the king's horses and all the king's gold left him unmoved. Much, he said, as he would have liked to oblige, he and his wife were determined. They would sail.
It was then that Geoffrey West made a compact with his friend. He secured from him the necessary steamer labels and it was arranged that his baggage was to go aboard the Saronia as the property of Gray.
“But,” protested Gray, “even suppose you do put this through; suppose you do manage to sail without a ticket—where will you sleep? In chains somewhere below, I fancy.”
“No matter!” bubbled West. “I'll sleep in the dining saloon, in a lifeboat, on the lee scuppers—whatever they are. I'll sleep in the air, without any visible support! I'll sleep anywhere—nowhere—but I'll sail! And as for irons—they don't make ‘em strong enough to hold me.”
At five o'clock on Thursday afternoon the Saronia slipped smoothly away from a Liverpool dock. Twenty-five hundred Americans—about twice the number the boat could comfortably carry—stood on her decks and cheered. Some of those in that crowd who had millions of money were booked for the steerage. All of them were destined to experience during that crossing hunger, annoyance, discomfort. They were to be stepped on, sat on, crowded and jostled. They suspected as much when the boat left the dock. Yet they cheered!
Gayest among them was Geoffrey West, triumphant amid the confusion. He was safely aboard; the boat was on its way! Little did it trouble him that he went as a stowaway, since he had no ticket; nothing but an overwhelming determination to be on the good ship Saronia.
That night as the Saronia stole along with all deck lights out and every porthole curtained, West saw on the dim deck the slight figure of a girl who meant much to him. She was standing staring out over the black waters; and, with wildly beating heart, he approached her, not knowing what to say, but feeling that a start must be made somehow.
“Please pardon me for addressing—” he began. “But I want to tell you—”
She turned, startled; and then smiled an odd little smile, which he could not see in the dark.
“I beg your pardon,” she said. “I haven't met you, that I recall—”
“I know,” he answered. “That's going to be arranged to-morrow. Mrs. Tommy Gray says you crossed with them—”
“Mere steamer acquaintances,” the girl replied coldly.
“Of course! But Mrs. Gray is a darling—she'll fix that all right. I just want to say, before to-morrow comes—”
“Wouldn't it be better to wait?”
“I can't! I'm on this ship without a ticket. I've got to go down in a minute and tell the purser that. Maybe he'll throw me overboard; maybe he'll lock me up. I don't know what they do with people like me. Maybe they'll make a stoker of me. And then I shall have to stoke, with no chance of seeing you again. So that's why I want to say now—I'm sorry I have such a keen imagination. It carried me away—really it did! I didn't mean to deceive you with those letters; but, once I got started—You know, don't you, that I love you with all my heart? From the moment you came into the Carlton that morning I—”
“Really—Mr.—Mr.—”
“West—Geoffrey West. I adore you! What can I do to prove it? I'm going to prove it—before this ship docks in the North River. Perhaps I'd better talk to your father, and tell him about the Agony Column and those seven letters—”
“You'd better not! He's in a terribly bad humor. The dinner was awful, and the steward said we'd be looking back to it and calling it a banquet before the voyage ends. Then, too, poor dad says he simply can not sleep in the stateroom they've given him—”
“All the better! I'll see him at once. If he stands for me now he'll stand for me any time! And, before I go down and beard a harsh-looking purser in his den, won't you believe me when I say I'm deeply in love—”
“In love with mystery and romance! In love with your own remarkable powers of invention! Really, I can't take you seriously—”
“Before this voyage is ended you'll have to. I'll prove to you that I care. If the purser lets me go free—”
“You have much to prove,” the girl smiled. “To-morrow—when Mrs. Tommy Gray introduces us—I may accept you—as a builder of plots. I happen to know you are good. But—as— It's too silly! Better go and have it out with that purser.”
Reluctantly he went. In five minutes he was back. The girl was still standing by the rail.
“It's all right!” West said. “I thought I was doing something original, but there were eleven other people in the same fix. One of them is a billionaire from Wall Street. The purser collected some money from us and told us to sleep on the deck—if we could find room.”
“I'm sorry,” said the girl. “I rather fancied you in the rôle of stoker.” She glanced about her at the dim deck. “Isn't this exciting? I'm sure this voyage is going to be filled with mystery and romance.”
“I know it will be full of romance,” West answered. “And the mystery will be—can I convince you—”
“Hush!” broke in the girl. “Here comes father! I shall be very happy to meet you—to-morrow. Poor dad! he's looking for a place to sleep.”
Five days later poor dad, having slept each night on deck in his clothes while the ship plowed through a cold drizzle, and having starved in a sadly depleted dining saloon, was a sight to move the heart of a political opponent. Immediately after a dinner that had scarcely satisfied a healthy Texas appetite he lounged gloomily in the deck chair which was now his stateroom. Jauntily Geoffrey West came and sat at his side.
“Mr. Larned,” he said, “I've got something for you.”
And, with a kindly smile, he took from his pocket and handed over a large, warm baked potato. The Texan eagerly accepted the gift.
“Where'd you get it?” he demanded, breaking open his treasure.
“That's a secret,” West answered. “But I can get as many as I want. Mr. Larned, I can say this—you will not go hungry any longer. And there's something else I ought to speak of. I am sort of aiming to marry your daughter.”
Deep in his potato the Congressman spoke:
“What does she say about it?”
“Oh, she says there isn't a chance. But—”
“Then look out, my boy! She's made up her mind to have you.”
“I'm glad to hear you say that. I really ought to tell you who I am. Also, I want you to know that, before your daughter and I met, I wrote her seven letters—”
“One minute,” broke in the Texan. “Before you go into all that, won't you be a good fellow and tell me where you got this potato?”
West nodded.
“Sure!” he said; and, leaning over, he whispered.
For the first time in days a smile appeared on the face of the older man.
“My boy,” he said, “I feel I'm going to like you. Never mind the rest. I heard all about you from your friend Gray; and as for those letters—they were the only thing that made the first part of this trip bearable. Marian gave them to me to read the night we came on board.”
Suddenly from out of the clouds a long-lost moon appeared, and bathed that over-crowded ocean liner in a flood of silver. West left the old man to his potato and went to find the daughter.
She was standing in the moonlight by the rail of the forward deck, her eyes staring dreamily ahead toward the great country that had sent her forth light-heartedly for to adventure and to see. She turned as West came up.
“I have just been talking with your father,” he said. “He tells me he thinks you mean to take me, after all.”
She laughed. “To-morrow night,” she answered, “will be our last on board. I shall give you my final decision then.”
“But that is twenty-four hours away! Must I wait so long as that?”
“A little suspense won't hurt you. I can't forget those long days when I waited for your letters—”
“I know! But can't you give me—just a little hint—here—to-night?”
“I am without mercy—absolutely without mercy!”
And then, as West's fingers closed over her hand, she added softly: “Not even the suspicion of a hint, my dear—except to tell you that—my answer will be—yes.”
THE END