Lady Betty Across the Water | Page 9

for Mrs. Ess Kay that she didn't appear to be ashamed of me at first. On the contrary, she had a way of seeming to show me off, almost as if she thought I did her credit.
When we had unpacked, we three went to luncheon, and took the first seats which were vacant. But presently Mrs. Ess Kay sent for the chief steward or someone important. "I am Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox," said she, in a haughty voice, "and I have as my guest Lady Betty Bulkeley, daughter of the Duchess of Stanforth. You must give me three of the best seats at the Captain's table."
I couldn't help hearing, and my ears did tingle, but Miss Woodburn only smiled and looked down, with a funny twinkle under her eyelashes, which curl up so much that it always seems as if she were just going to laugh.
I thought, if I were the steward, I would give us the worst seats on the ship, to teach us not to be proud; but he didn't do anything of the sort; he was as meek as a lamb, so I'm sure he can't have any sense of humour. He said Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox might count on him, and she and her party should have places on the Captain's right hand.
Mrs. Ess Kay was as bad with the deck steward. She found that he hadn't put our chairs (which she had brought on board herself) in the right place, and she had him called up and made a great fuss. The cards of a Reverend Somebody, his wife and daughters, were on chairs in the position which she had made up her mind to have, exactly amidship and on the shady side.
"I must have my chairs changed and put here," she said. And then--oh, horror!--I'm certain I caught her repeating the formula she'd used at luncheon. "I am Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox, and I have as my guest, etc, etc." To be sure, she had walked off to a little distance with the deck-steward, where our chairs were, and I might have been mistaken; but two or three people who were standing near looked suddenly very hard at me, and I know I turned scarlet with annoyance, to be labelled in that way, as if I were a parcel marked "glass" and to be handled with care.
Afterwards, when I came to read the passenger-list, I found that there was nobody else on board with any sort of title, not even an Honourable Anybody; otherwise, of course, Mrs. Ess Kay's little manoeuvre (which I'm afraid must have been meant for snobbishness) wouldn't have excited the slightest notice.
"Now," said Mrs. Ess Kay, when we were settled in our places, "I know a good many people on the ship, but most of them are Nobodies, and I do not intend to be troubled with them, nor do I think that the Duchess would care to have me let Betty mix herself up with anybody and everybody. I shall do a great deal of weeding and select her acquaintances carefully."
"Betty," indeed! I'd never told her that she might call me Betty; and I hate having persons I don't care for take hold of my name, without using a handle to touch it. It makes me feel as I did when I was a child, and Mother commanded me to let myself be kissed by unkissable and extraneous grown-ups.
Thank goodness, Vic and I have come into the world with something of poor Father's sense of humour. My share often serves me as well as balm on a wound, or as a nice, dry, crackly little biscuit which you're enchanted to find when you're hungry, and thought you had nothing to eat; and I got a good deal of quiet comfort out of it during Mrs. Ess Kay's "weeding" process, which otherwise would have done nothing but make me squirm.
When we had been on deck for a short time, a number of people came up to speak to Mrs. Ess Kay, and some to Miss Woodburn. The water was as smooth as the floor of a ballroom when it's been well waxed for a dance, and there was no excuse for the most sensitive person to be ill; consequently the deck was something like a kaleidoscope, with all its moving groups of men and women, girls and children. Most of the best-looking and best-dressed ones were Americans, and a great many seemed to know each other. Some of them laughed a good deal, and talked in high voices, putting emphasis on prepositions, which Miss Mackinstry and the others would never let me do in writing compositions. Somehow, though, when these people spoke it sounded very nice and cordial, more so than it does when English people greet each other, though the voices weren't so sweet--except a