"Certainly, madame, certainly," he made haste to say. "You are quite right, and you may rest a.s.sured that everything will be done that our best knowledge directs. I only regret that the information did not come to me sooner."
"It only came to me about an hour ago," I said, as I rose to leave. "The blame, therefore, must rest upon another person."
I needed to say no more. He bowed me politely out, and I walked down the street, and realised that I was restless and wretched. I wandered at random for a while, trying to think what else I could do, for my own peace of mind, if not for Sylvia"s welfare. I found myself inventing one worry after another. Dr. Overton had not said just when he was going, and suppose she were to need someone at once? Or suppose something were to happen to him--if he were to be killed upon the long train-journey? I was like a mother who has had a terrible dream about her child--she must rush and fling her arms about the child. I realised that I wanted to see Sylvia!
She had begged me to come; and I was worn out and had been urged by the office to take a rest. Suddenly I bolted into a store, and telephoned the railroad station about trains to Southern Florida. I hailed a taxi-cab, rode to my home post-haste, and flung a few of my belongings into a bag and the waiting cab sped with me to the ferry. In little more than two hours after Claire had told me the dreadful tidings, I was speeding on my way to Sylvia.
11. From a train-window I had once beheld a cross-section of America from West to East; now I beheld another from North to South. In the afternoon were the farms and country-homes of New Jersey; and then in the morning endless wastes of wilderness, and straggling fields of young corn and tobacco; turpentine forests, with half-stripped negroes working, and a procession of "depots," with lanky men chewing tobacco, and negroes basking in the blazing sun. Then another night, and there was the pageant of Florida: palmettos, and other trees of which one had seen pictures in the geography books; stretches of vine-tangled swamps, where one looked for alligators; orange-groves in blossom, and gardens full of flowers beyond imagining. Every hour, of course, it got hotter; I was not, like Sylvia, used to it, and whenever the train stopped I sat by the open window, mopping the perspiration from my face.
We were due at Miami in the afternoon; but there was a freight-train off the track ahead of us, and so for three hours I sat chafing with impatience, worrying the conductor with futile questions. I had to make connections at Miami with a train which ran to the last point on the mainland, where the construction-work over the keys was going forward.
And if I missed that last train, I would have to wait in Miami till morning. I had better wait there, anyhow, the conductor argued; but I insisted that my friends, to whom I had telegraphed two days before, would meet me with a launch and take me to their place that night.
We got in half an hour late for the other train; but this was the South, I discovered, and they had waited for us. I shifted my bag and myself across the platform, and we moved on. But then another problem arose; we were running into a storm. It came with great suddenness; one minute all was still, with a golden sunset, and the next it was so dark that I could barely see the palm-trees, bent over, swaying madly--like people with arms stretched out, crying in distress. I could hear the roaring of the wind above that of the train, and I asked the conductor in consternation if this could be a hurricane. It was not the season for hurricanes, he replied; but it was "some storm, all right," and I would not find any boat to take me to the keys until it was over.
It was absurd of me to be nervous, I kept telling myself; but there was something in me that cried out to be there, to be there! I got out of the train, facing what I refrain from calling a hurricane out of deference to local authority. It was all I could do to keep from being blown across the station-platform, and I was drenched with the spray and bewildered by the roaring of the waves that beat against the pier beyond. Inside the station, I questioned the agent. The launch of the van Tuivers had not been in that day; if it had been on the way, it must have sought shelter somewhere. My telegram to Mrs. van Tuiver had been received two days before, and delivered by a boatman whom they employed for that purpose. Presumably, therefore, I would be met. I asked how long this gale was apt to last; the answer was from one to three days.
Then I asked about shelter for the night. This was a "jumping-off"
place, said the agent, with barracks and shanties for a construction-gang; there were saloons, and what was called a hotel, but it wouldn"t do for a lady. I pleaded that I was not fastidious--being anxious to nullify the effect which the name van Tuiver had produced.
But the agent would have it that the place was unfit for even a Western farmer"s wife; and as I was not anxious to take the chance of being blown overboard in the darkness, I spent the night on one of the benches in the station. I lay, listening to the incredible clamour of wind and waves, feeling the building quiver, and wondering if each gust might not blow it away.
I was out at dawn, the force of the wind having abated somewhat by that time. I saw before me a waste of angry foam-strewn water, with no sign of any craft upon it. Late in the morning came the big steamer which ran to Key West, in connection with the railroad; it made a difficult landing, and I interviewed the captain, with the idea of bribing him to take me to my destination. But he had his schedule, which neither storms nor the name of van Tuiver could alter. Besides, he pointed out, he could not land me at their place, as his vessel drew too much water to get anywhere near; and if he landed me elsewhere, I should be no better off, "If your friends are expecting you, they"ll come here," he said, "and their launch can travel when nothing else can."
To pa.s.s the time I went to inspect the viaduct of the railway-to-be. The first stretch was completed, a long series of concrete arches, running out, apparently, into the open sea. It was one of the engineering wonders of the world, but I fear I did not appreciate it. Towards mid-afternoon I made out a speck of a boat over the water, and my friend, the station-agent, remarked, "There"s your launch."
I expressed my amazement that they should have ventured out in such weather. I had had in mind the kind of tiny open craft that one hears making day and night hideous at summer-resorts; but when the "Merman"
drew near, I realized afresh what it was to be the guest of a multi-millionaire. She was about fifty feet long, a vision of polished bra.s.s and shining, new-varnished cedar. She rammed her shoulder into the waves and flung them contemptuously to one side; her cabin was tight, dry as the saloon of a liner.
Three men emerged on deck to a.s.sist in the difficult process of making a landing. One of them sprang to the dock, and confronting me, inquired if I was Mrs. Abbott. He explained that they had set out to meet me the previous afternoon, but had had to take refuge behind one of the keys.
"How is Mrs. van Tuiver?" I asked, quickly.
"She is well."
"I don"t suppose--the baby----" I hinted.
"No, ma"am, not yet," said the man; and after that I felt interested in what he had to say about the storm and its effects. We could return at once, it seemed, if I did not mind being pitched about.
"How long does it take?" I asked.
"Three hours, in weather like this. It"s about fifty miles."
"But then it will be dark," I objected.
"That won"t matter, ma"am--we have plenty of light of our own. We shan"t have trouble, unless the wind rises, and there"s a chain of keys all the way, where we can get shelter if it does. The worst you have to fear is spending a night on board."
I reflected that I could not well be more uncomfortable than I had been the previous night, so I voted for a start. There was mail and some supplies to be put on board; then I made a spring for the deck, as it surged up towards me on a rising wave, and in a moment more the cabin-door had shut behind me, and I was safe and snug, in the midst of leather and mahogany and electric-lighted magnificence. Through the heavy double windows I saw the dock swing round behind us, and saw the torrents of green spray sweep over us and past. I grasped at the seat to keep myself from being thrown forward, and then grasped behind, to keep from going in that direction. I had a series of sensations as of an elevator stopping suddenly--and then I draw the curtains of the "Merman"s" cabin, and invite the reader to pa.s.s by. This is Sylvia"s story, and not mine, and it is of no interest what happened to me during that trip. I will only remind the reader that I had lived my life in the far West, and there were some things I could not have foreseen.
12. "We are there, ma"am," I heard one of the boatmen say, and I realised vaguely that the pitching had ceased. He helped me to sit up, and I saw the search-light of the craft sweeping the sh.o.r.e of an island.
"It pa.s.ses off "most as quick as it comes, ma"am," added my supporter, and for this I murmured feeble thanks.
We came to a little bay, where the power was shut off, and we glided towards the sh.o.r.e. There was a boat-house, a sort of miniature dry-dock, with a gate which closed behind us. I had visions of Sylvia waiting to meet me, but apparently our arrival had not been noted, and for this I was grateful. There were seats in the boat-house, and I sank into one, and asked the man to wait a few minutes while I recovered myself. When I got up and went to the house, what I found made me quickly forget that I had such a thing as a body.
There was a bright moon, I remember, and I could see the long, low bungalow, with windows gleaming through the palm-trees. A woman"s figure emerged from the house and came down the white sh.e.l.l-path to meet me. My heart leaped. My beloved!
But then I saw it was the English maid, whom I had come to know in New York; I saw, too, that her face was alight with excitement. "Oh, my lady!" she cried. "The baby"s come!"
It was like a blow in the face. "_What?_" I gasped.
"Came early this morning. A girl."
"But--I thought it wasn"t till next week!"
"I know, but it"s here. In that terrible storm, when we thought the house was going to be washed away! Oh, my lady, it"s the loveliest baby!"
I had presence of mind enough to try to hide my dismay. The semi-darkness was a fortunate thing for me. "How is the mother?" I asked.
"Splendid. She"s asleep now."
"And the child?"
"Oh! Such a dear you never saw!"
"And it"s all right?"
"It"s just the living image of its mother! You shall see!"
We moved towards the house, slowly, while I got my thoughts together.
"Dr. Perrin is here?" I asked.
"Yes. He"s gone to his place to sleep."
"And the nurse?"
"She"s with the child. Come this way."
We went softly up the steps of the veranda. All the rooms opened upon it, and we entered one of them, and by the dim-shaded light I saw a white-clad woman bending over a crib. "Miss Lyman, this is Mrs. Abbott,"
said the maid.
The nurse straightened up. "Oh! so you got here! And just at the right time!"
"G.o.d grant it may be so!" I thought to myself. "So this is the child!" I said, and bent over the crib. The nurse turned up the light for me.
It is the form in which the miracle of life becomes most apparent to us, and dull indeed must be he who can encounter it without being stirred to the depths. To see, not merely new life come into the world, but life which has been made by ourselves, or by those we love--life that is a mirror and copy of something dear to us! To see this tiny mite of warm and living flesh, and to see that it was Sylvia! To trace each beloved lineament, so much alike, and yet so different--half a portrait and half a caricature, half sublime and half ludicrous! The comical little imitation of her nose, with each dear little curve, with even a remainder of the tiny groove underneath the tip, and the tiny corresponding dimple underneath the chin! The soft silken fuzz which was some day to be Sylvia"s golden glory! The delicate, sensitive lips, which were some day to quiver with feeling! I gazed at them and saw them moving, I saw the breast moving--and a wave of emotion swept over me, and the tears half-blinded me as I knelt.
But I could not forget the reason for my coming. It meant little that the child was alive and seemingly well; I was not dealing with a disease which, like syphilis, starves and deforms in the very womb. The little one was asleep, but I moved the light so as to examine its eyelids. Then I turned to the nurse and asked: "Miss Lyman, doesn"t it seem to you the eyelids are a trifle inflamed?"
"Why, I hadn"t noticed it," she answered.
"Were the eyes washed?" I inquired.