Frances Waldeaux | Page 3

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FRANCES WALDEAUX
A Novel
BY
REBECCA HARDING DAVIS AUTHOR OF "DOCTOR
WARRICK'S DAUGHTER"

A REMEMBRANCER OF BRITTANY FOR THE BEST
FELLOW-TRAVELLER IN THE WORLD
FRANCES WALDEAUX ----
CHAPTER I
In another minute the Kaiser Wilhelm would push off from her pier in
Hoboken. The last bell had rung, the last uniformed officer and
white-jacketed steward had scurried up the gangway. The pier was
massed with people who had come to bid their friends good-by. They
were all Germans, and there had been unlimited embracing and kissing
and sobs of "Ach! mein lieber Sckatz!" and "Gott bewahre Dick!"
Now they stood looking up to the crowded decks, shouting out last
fond words. A band playing "The Merry Maiden and the Tar" marched
on board.
The passengers pressed against the rails, looking down. Almost every
one held flowers which had been brought to them: not costly bouquets,
but homely bunches of marigolds or pinks. They carried, too, little
German or American flags, which they waved frantically.
The gangways fell, and the huge ship parted from the dock. It was but
an inch, but the whole ocean yawned in it between those who went and
those who stayed. There was a sudden silence; a thousand
handkerchiefs fluttered white on the pier and the flags and flowers were
waved on the ship, but there was not a cry nor a sound.
James Perry, one of the dozen Americans on board, was leaning over
the rail watching it all with an amused smile. "Hello, Watts!" he called,

as another young man joined him. "Going over? Quite dramatic, isn't it?
It might be a German ship going out of a German port. The other liners
set off in as commonplace a way as a Jersey City ferryboat, but these
North German Lloyd ships always sail with a certain ceremony and
solemnity. I like it."
"I always cross on them," said Dr. Watts. "I have but a month's
vacation--two weeks on board ship, two on land. Now you, I suppose,
don't have to count your days? You cross every year. I can't see, for my
part, what business the assistant editor of a magazine has abroad."
"Oh, we make a specialty of articles from notorieties over there;
statesmen, scientific fellows, or people with titles. I expect to capture a
paper from Lorne and some sketches by the Princess Beatrice this
time."
"Lorne? It throws you into contact with that sort of folk, eh?" said the
doctor, looking at him enviously. "How do they strike you, Jem?"
"Well," said Perry importantly, "well-bred people are the same the
world over. I only see them in a business way, of course, but one can
judge. Their voices are better than ours, but as to looks--no! It's queer,
but American women--the wives and daughters of saddlers or farmers,
perhaps--have more often the patrician look than English duchesses.
Now there, for example," warming to the subject, "that woman to
whom you bowed just now, the middle-aged one in blue cloth. Some
Mrs. Smith or Pratt, probably. A homely woman, but there is a
distinction in her face, a certain surety of good breeding, which is
lacking in the heavy-jawed English royalties."
"Yes; that is a friend of mine," said Watts.
She is a Mrs. Waldeaux from Wier, in Delaware. You could hardly call
her a typical American woman. Old French emigre family. Probably
better blood than the Coburgs a few generations back. That priggish
young fellow is her son. Going to be an Episcopalian minister."
Mr. Perry surveyed his friend's friends good-humoredly. "Brand new

rugs and cushions," he said. "First voyage. Heavens! I wish it were my
first voyage, and that I had their appetite for Europe."
"You might as well ask for your relish of the bread and butter of your
youth," said Watts.
The two men leaned lazily against the bulwark watching the other
passengers who were squabbling about trunks.
Mr. Perry suddenly stood upright as a group of women passed.
"Do you know who that girl is?" he said eagerly. "The one who looked
back at us over her shoulder."
"No. They are only a lot of school-girls, personally conducted. That is
the teacher in front." "Of course, I see that. But the short, dark
one--surely I know that woman."
The doctor looked after her. "She looks like a dog turning into a human
being," he said leisurely. "One often sees such cases of arrested
evolution. D'ye see? Thick lips, coarse