Читать книгу A Chicago Princess - Barr Robert - Страница 3

A stairway was slung on the other side of the yacht from that on which I had ascended, and at its foot lay a large and comfortable boat belonging to the yacht, manned by four stout seamen. Down this stairway and into the boat I escorted Miss Hemster. She seated herself in the stern and took the tiller-ropes in her hands, now daintily gloved. I sat down opposite to her and was about to give a command to the men to give way when she forestalled me, and the oars struck the water simultaneously. As soon as we had rounded the bow of the yacht there was a sudden outcry from a half-naked Japanese boy who was sculling about in a sampan.

“What’s the matter with him?” asked Miss Hemster with a little laugh. “Does he think we’re going to desert this boat and take that floating coffin of his?”

“I think it is my own man,” I said; “and he fears that his fare is leaving him without settling up. Have I your permission to stop these men till he comes alongside? He has been waiting patiently for me while I talked with Mr. Hemster.”

“Why, certainly,” said the girl, and in obedience to her order the crew held water, and as the boy came alongside I handed him more than double what I owed him, and he nearly upset his craft by bowing in amazed acknowledgment.

“You’re an Englishman, I suppose,” said Miss Hemster.

“In a sort of way I am, but really a citizen of the world. For many years past I have been less in England than in other countries.”

“For many years? Why, you talk as if you were an old man, and you don’t look a day more than thirty.”

“My looks do not libel me, Miss Hemster,” I replied with a laugh, “for I am not yet thirty.”

“I am twenty-one,” she said carelessly, “but every one says I don’t look more than seventeen.”

“I thought you were younger than seventeen,” said I, “when I first saw you a moment ago.”

“Did you really? I think it is very flattering of you to say so, and I hope you mean it.”

“I do, indeed, Miss Hemster.”

“Do you think I look younger than Hilda?” she asked archly, “most people do.”

“Hilda!” said I. “What Hilda?”

“Why, Hilda Stretton, my companion.”

“I have never seen her.”

“Oh, yes, you did; she was standing at the companion-way and was coming with me when I preferred to come with you.”

“I did not see her,” I said, shaking my head; “I saw no one but you.”

The young lady laughed merrily, – a melodious ripple of sound. I have heard women’s laughter compared to the tinkle of silver bells, but to that musical tintinnabulation was now added something so deliciously human and girlish that the whole effect was nothing short of enchanting. Conversation now ceased, for we were drawing close to the shore. I directed the crew where to land, and the young lady sprang up the steps without assistance from me, – before, indeed, I could proffer any. I was about to follow when one of the sailors touched me on the shoulder.

“The old man,” he said in a husky whisper, nodding his head toward the yacht, “told me to tell you that when you buy that crockery you’re not to let Miss Hemster know anything about it.”

“Aren’t you coming?” cried Miss Hemster to me from the top of the wharf.

I ascended the steps with celerity and begged her pardon for my delay.

“I am not sprightly seventeen, you see,” I said.

She laughed, and I put her in a ’rickshaw drawn by a stalwart Japanese, got into one myself, and we set off for the main shopping street. I was rather at a loss to know exactly what the sailor’s message meant, but I took it to be that for some reason Mr. Hemster did not wish his daughter to learn that he was indulging so freely in dinner sets. As it was already three o’clock in the afternoon, I realized that there would be some difficulty in getting the goods aboard by five o’clock, unless the young lady dismissed me when we arrived at the shops. This, however, did not appear to be her intention in the least; when our human steeds stopped, she gave me her hand lightly as she descended, and then said, with her captivating smile:

“I want you to take me at once to a china shop.”

“To a what?” I cried.

“To a shop where they sell dishes, – dinner sets and that sort of thing. You know what I mean, – a crockery store.”

I did, but I was so astonished by the request coming right on the heels of the message from her father, and taken in conjunction with his previous order, that I am afraid I stood looking very much like a fool, whereupon she laughed heartily, and I joined her. I saw she was quite a merry young lady, with a keen sense of the humour of things.

“Haven’t they any crockery stores in this town?” she asked.

“Oh, there are plenty of them,” I replied.

“Why, you look as if you had never heard of such a thing before. Take me, then, to whichever is the best. I want to buy a dinner set and a tea set the very first thing.”

I bowed, and, somewhat to my embarrassment, she took my arm, tripping along by my side as if she were a little girl of ten, overjoyed at her outing, to which feeling she gave immediate expression.

“Isn’t this jolly?” she cried.

“It is the most undeniably jolly shopping excursion I ever engaged in,” said I, fervently and truthfully.

“You see,” she went on, “the delight of this sort of thing is that we are in an utterly foreign country and can do just as we please. That is why I did not wish Hilda to come with us. She is rather prim and has notions of propriety which are all right at home, but what is the use of coming to foreign countries if you cannot enjoy them as you wish to?”

“I think that is a very sensible idea,” said I.

“Why, it seems as if you and I were members of a travelling theatrical company, and were taking part in ‘The Mikado,’ doesn’t it? What funny little people they are all around us! Nagasaki doesn’t seem real. It looks as if it were set on a stage, – don’t you think so?”

“Well, you know, I am rather accustomed to it. I have lived here for more than a year, as I told you.”

“Oh, so you said. I have not got used to it yet. Have you ever seen ‘The Mikado?’”

“Do you mean the Emperor or the play?”

“At the moment I was thinking of the play.”

“Yes, I have seen it, and the real Mikado, too, and spoken with him.”

“Have you, indeed? How lucky you are!”

“You speak truly, Miss Hemster, and I never knew how lucky I was until to-day.”

She bent her head and laughed quietly to herself. I thought we were more like a couple of school children than members of a theatrical troupe, but as I never was an actor I cannot say how the latter behave when they are on the streets of a strange town.

“Oh, I have met your kind of man before, Mr. Tremorne. You don’t mind what you say when you are talking to a lady as long as it is something flattering.”

“I assure you, Miss Hemster, that quite the contrary is the case. I never flatter; and if I have been using a congratulatory tone it has been directed entirely to myself and to my own good fortune.”

“There you go again. How did you come to meet the Mikado?”

“I used to be in the diplomatic service in Japan, and my duties on several occasions brought me the honor of an audience with His Majesty.”

“How charmingly you say that, and I can see that you believe it from your heart; and although we are democratic, I believe it, too. I always love diplomatic society, and enjoyed a good deal of it in Washington, and my imagination always pictured behind them the majesty of royalty, so I have come abroad to see the real thing. I was presented at Court in London, Mr. Tremorne. Now, please don’t say that you congratulate the Court!”

“There is no need of my saying it, as it has already been said; or perhaps I should say ‘it goes without saying.’”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Tremorne; I think you are the most polite man I ever met. I want you to do me a very great favor and introduce me to the higher grades of diplomatic society in Nagasaki during our stay here.”

“I regret, Miss Hemster, that that is impossible, because I have been out of the service for some years now. Besides, the society here is consular rather than diplomatic. The Legation is at the capital, you know. Nagasaki is merely a commercial city.”

“Oh, is it? I thought perhaps you had been seeing my father to-day because of some consular business, or that sort of thing, pertaining to the yacht.”

As the girl said this I realized, with a suddenness that was disconcerting, the fact that I was practically acting under false pretences. I was her father’s humble employee, and she did not know it. I remembered with a pang when her father first mentioned my name she paid not the slightest attention to it; but when he said I was the cousin of Lord Tremorne the young lady had favored me with a glance I was not soon to forget. Therefore, seeing that Mr. Hemster had neglected to make my position clear, it now became my duty to give some necessary explanation, so that his daughter might not continue an acquaintance that was rapidly growing almost intimate under her misapprehension as to who I was. I saw with a pang that a humiliation was in store for me such as always lies in wait for a man who momentarily steps out of his place and receives consideration which is not his social due.

I had once before suffered the experience which was now ahead of me, and it was an episode I did not care to repeat, although I failed to see how it could be honestly avoided. On my return to Japan I sought out the man in the diplomatic service who had been my greatest friend and for whom I had in former days accomplished some slight services, because my status in the ranks was superior to his own. Now that there was an opportunity for a return of these services, I called upon him, and was received with a cordiality that went to my discouraged heart; but the moment he learned I was in need, and that I could not regain the place I had formerly held, he congealed in the most tactful manner possible. It was an interesting study in human deportment. His manner and words were simply unimpeachable, but there gathered around him a mantle of impenetrable frigidity the collection of which was a triumph in tactful intercourse. As he grew colder and colder, I grew hotter and hotter. I managed to withdraw without showing, I hope, the deep humiliation I felt. Since that time I had never sought a former acquaintance, or indeed any countryman of my own, preferring to be indebted to my old friend Yansan on the terrace above or the sampan-boy on the waters below. The man I speak of has risen high and is rising higher in my old profession, and every now and then his last words ring in my ears and warm them, – words of counterfeit cordiality as he realized they were the last that he should probably ever speak to me:

“Well, my dear fellow, I’m ever so glad you called. If I can do anything for you, you must be sure and let me know.”

As I had already let him know, my reply that I should certainly do so must have sounded as hollow as his own smooth phrase.

Unpleasant as that episode was, the situation was now ten times worse, as it involved a woman, – and a lovely woman at that, – who had treated me with a kindness she would feel misplaced when she understood the truth. However, there was no help for it, so, clearing my throat, I began:

“Miss Hemster, when I took the liberty of calling on your father this morning, I was a man penniless and out of work. I went to the yacht in the hope that I might find something to do. I was fortunate enough to be offered the position of private secretary to Mr. Hemster, which position I have accepted.”

The young lady, as I expected, instantly withdrew her hand from my arm, and stood there facing me, I also coming to a halt; and thus we confronted each other in the crowded street of Nagasaki. Undeniable amazement overspread her beautiful countenance.

“Why!” she gasped, “you are, then, Poppa’s hired man?”

I winced a trifle, but bowed low to her.

“Madam,” I replied, “you have stated the fact with great truth and terseness.”

“Do you mean to say,” she said, “that you are to be with us after this on the yacht?”

“I suspect such to be your father’s intention.” Then, to my amazement, she impulsively thrust forth both her hands and clasped mine.

“Why, how perfectly lovely!” she exclaimed. “I haven’t had a white man to talk with except Poppa for ages and ages. But you must remember that everything I want you to do, you are to do. You are to be my hired man; Poppa won’t mind.”

“You will find me a most devoted retainer, Miss Hemster.”

“I do love that word ‘retainer,’” she cried enthusiastically. “It is like the magic talisman of the ‘Arabian Nights,’ and conjures up at once visions of a historic tower, mullioned windows, and all that sort of thing. When you were made a bankrupt, Mr. Tremorne, was there one faithful old retainer who refused to desert you as the others had done?”

“Ah, my dear young lady, you are thinking of the romantic drama now, as you were alluding to comic opera a little while ago. I believe, in the romantic drama, the retainer, like the man with the mortgage, never lets go. I am thankful to say I had no such person in my employ. He would have been an awful nuisance. It was hard enough to provide for myself, not to mention a retainer. But here we are at the crockery shop.”

I escorted her in, and she was soon deeply absorbed in the mysteries of this pattern or that of the various wares exposed to her choice. Meanwhile I took the opportunity to give the proprietor instructions in his own language to send to the yacht before five o’clock what Mr. Hemster had ordered, and I warned the man he was not to mix up the order I had just given him with that of the young lady. The Japanese are very quick at comprehension, and when Miss Hemster and I left the place I had no fear of any complication arising through my instructions.

We wandered from shop to shop, the girl enthusiastic over Nagasaki, much to my wonder, for there are other places in Japan more attractive than this commercial town; but the glamor of the East cast its spell over the young woman, and, although I was rather tired of the Orient, I must admit that the infection of her high spirits extended to my own feelings. A week ago it would have appeared impossible that I should be enjoying myself so thoroughly as I was now doing. It seemed as if years had rolled from my shoulders, and I was a boy once more, living in a world where conventionality was unknown.

The girl herself was in a whirlwind of glee, and it was not often that the shopkeepers of Nagasaki met so easy a victim. She seemed absolutely reckless in the use of money, paying whatever was asked for anything that took her fancy. In a very short time all her ready cash was gone, but that made not the slightest difference. She ordered here and there with the extravagance of a queen, on what she called the “C. O. D.” plan, which I afterward learned was an American phrase meaning, “Collect on delivery.” Her peregrinations would have tired out half-a-dozen men, but she showed no signs of fatigue. I felt a hesitation about inviting her to partake of refreshment, but I need not have been so backward.

“Talking of comic operas,” she exclaimed as we came out of the last place, “Aren’t there any tea-houses here, such as we see on the stage?”

“Yes, plenty of them,” I replied.

“Well,” she exclaimed with a ripple of laughter, “take me to the wickedest of them. What is the use of going around the world in a big yacht if you don’t see life?”

I wondered what her father would say if he knew, but I acted the faithful retainer to the last, and did as I was bid. She expressed the utmost delight in everything she saw, and it was well after six o’clock when we descended from our ’rickshaw at the landing. The boat was awaiting us, and in a short time we were alongside the yacht once more. It had been a wild, tempestuous outing, and I somewhat feared the stern disapproval of an angry parent. He was leaning over the rail revolving an unlit cigar.

“Oh, Poppa!” she cried up at him with enthusiasm, “I have had a perfectly splendid time. Mr. Tremorne knows Nagasaki like a book. He has taken me everywhere,” she cried, with unnecessary emphasis on the last word.

The millionaire was entirely unperturbed.

“That’s all right,” he said. “I hope you haven’t tired yourself out.”

“Oh, no! I should be delighted to do it all over again! Has anybody sent anything aboard for me?”

“Yes,” said the old man, “there’s been a procession of people here since you left. Dinner’s ready, Mr. Tremorne. You’ll come aboard, of course, and take pot-luck with us?”

“No, thank you, Mr. Hemster,” I said; “I must get a sampan and make my way into town again.”

“Just as you say; but you don’t need a sampan, these men will row you back again. See you to-morrow at ten, then.”

Miss Hemster, now on deck, leaned over the rail and daintily blew me a kiss from the tips of her slender fingers.

“Thank you so much, retainer,” she cried, as I lifted my hat in token of farewell.