"No, with much grat.i.tude to you both; I must wait the arrival of my Uncle," I made answer to them with my head held very high.
"Then we"ll see you at the Ritz for tea at five as per promise," said Mr. William Raines as he walked away and left Mr. Peter Scudder, who was a.s.sisting the lady from Cincinnati to transport her very lovely dog to a handsome car which awaited her. She also had I promised to visit from that great Ritz-Carlton hotel and she smiled in sweet friendliness to me as I stood with the letter in my hand and watched all of the friends I had found upon that ship, depart and leave me with not a place to go. I stood for many minutes motionless and then my eyes perceived the letter in my hand. Surely it must be opened and read. It was from the wicked Uncle, I knew, but it might be that it was not of the cruelty that I had expected. It would excuse him no doubt from arrival in person for the expected greeting to his relatives, Pierre and myself.
"Go to it, Bob," I advised myself in the language I had heard Mr.
Saint Louis use when he was forced to ask a nice lady, who danced with disagreeable heaviness, to trot the fox with him because of a friendship with his mother.
And this is the letter that my eyes read with astonishment, while both the good Nannette and small shivering Pierre sat with their eyes fixed upon my countenance:
"My dear nephew Robert:
"Your arrival in America at this time suits me exactly. I need you immediately in my business. If you had been the girl, instead of the little one, I would have had to dispose of you some way--even murder. I have no use for women. Leave the little crippled girl and her nurse, who I feel sure is an old fool, with my good friend Dr. Mason Burns, of 222 South 32nd St. He has cured more children of hip joint disease than any man in the world, and he will straighten her out for us and we can give her away to somebody. I"ve written him instructions.
Leave her immediately and come down here to me on the first train. The deal is held up without you. Enclosed is a check for a thousand dollars. If you are like Henry you"ll need it, but keep away from Broadway and the women. Come on, I say, by next train.
Your uncle, Robert Carruthers.
Hayesville, Harpeth."
"The Uncle of America has come to a confusion of the s.e.x between Pierre and me from a careless memory and the writing of my hand, which is of a great boldness, but not to be easily read," I explained as I read the letter aloud to Pierre and Nannette.
It took me just one hour by the clock, sitting there on the pile of steamer wraps with the small Pierre in the hollow of my arm, to explain and translate the sense of that letter to old Nannette, and I feel sure she would have been sitting upon that spot yet immovable rather than let me depart from her if I had not put all of my time and force upon the picturing to her of a Pierre who could come down with her later to me in a condition to run through the gardens of Twin Oaks, which was the home of his American ancestors. With that vision constantly before her she let the porter and me insert her into a taxicab and extract her at the door of the small private hospital of the good Dr. Burns who was to perform the miracle for the back and hip of small and radiant Pierre.
"But what is it that I do to permit the _jeune fille_ of my beloved mistress to depart into this city of wicked savages not attended by me? I cannot. Do not demand it!" were the words with which I left her arguing with that very sympathetic and sensible doctor of America. He had not noticed a confusion of s.e.x was between Pierre and me and he had sent out the check of my wicked Uncle and procured the American money for me. Also he had given me a few directions that he appeared to think of a great sufficiency and had ordered a taxi to be in readiness for me.
"Nonsense, Nurse," he said to Nannette bruskly but not with unkindness when I had translated to him Nannette"s weeping protests. "A great strapping girl like that can get down to the Harpeth Valley all right by herself. n.o.body"s going to eat her up, and from the size of the biceps I detect under that chiffon I think she could give a good account of herself if anybody tried. How like you are to what Henry was at your age, child, G.o.d bless you! I"d go to the station with you but I"ve a patient all prepared for an operation. Shall I send a nurse with you?"
"No, please, good Doctor, and good-bye," I said, with a great haste as I hurriedly embraced both Nannette and the small Pierre and departed down the broad steps into the taxi with the open door.
"Pennsylvania Station! Your train may not leave for hours, but you can get your baggage together. Good-bye," said that good Doctor as he shut the door and returned to his pursuit of making human beings either whole or dead.
"And now, Roberta Carruthers, no longer Marquise of Grez and Bye, you are in your America, and let"s see you do some hustling," as remarked that Mr. Saint Louis to Mr. Peter Scudder at cards.
And while that very swift taxi conveyed me to the large station that is as beautiful as a cathedral I did some what I name "tall thinking."
What would be the result of my womanly arrival in that State of Harpeth of my wicked Uncle? Would he be forced to murder me as his letter had said? And if in his anger over the mistake he had made from my letter, written in that very bold and difficult handwriting, he should turn from me, and the good Nannette and Pierre as well, what would I then do? All must be enacted that a cure for Pierre be obtained. With great energy I had been thinking, but I did not know what it was that I should do to prevent his anger when I arrived to him as a woman until suddenly the good Doctor Burns" kindness in marking the resemblance of me to my father in his extreme youth made an entry into my brain and was received with the greatest welcome by the daredevil who there resides.
"Very well, Robert Carruthers, who is no longer the beautiful Marquise of Grez and Bye, you will be that husky nephew to your wicked Uncle in the State of Harpeth whom he "needs in his business." What is it that you lack of a man"s estate save the clothes, which you have money in your pockets to obtain after you have purchased the ticket upon the railway train?"
A decision had been made and action upon it had begun in less than a half hour after the purchase of the ticket for the State of Harpeth had been accomplished.
As my father had taught me observation in hunting, I had remarked a large shop for the clothing of men upon the Sixth Avenue near to the station. I made my way into it and by a very nice fiction of an invalid brother whom I was taking to the South of America I was able to buy for a few dollars less than was in my pocket two most interesting bags of apparel for a handsome young man of fashion. The man who a.s.sisted me to buy was very large, with a head only ornamented with a drapery of gray hair around the edges, and he spoke much of what his son deemed suitable to make appearance in the prevailing mode.
"He"s at tea at the Ritz-Carlton with a lady friend this afternoon, and I wish you could have saw him when he left the store to meet her,"
he said as he laid the last of the silk scarfs and hose into one of the large flat bags I had purchased and which he had packed as I selected. "He had on the match to these gray tweeds and was fitted out in lavender from the skin out. Now what are you going to do about shoes, Miss?"
"That I do not know, kind sir," I made answer with a great perplexity.
"I think that the feet of my relative are about the size of those I possess."
"Most women would wear shoes near the size of their brothers" if they didn"t prefer to waddle and limp along with their feet scrouged. Go over to the shoe department and the clerk will fit you out with what you need in about two sizes larger than you wear. If they are not right you can tell just about what will be, and exchange "em by special messenger. I"ll pack all this shipshape before you come back."
With which direction I left the kind man and made my way to another of equal kindness.
"I have had upon my feet the shoes of my brother when in accidents while at hunting and fishing, and I think I can ascertain a good fitting," I made a falsification to the very polite young man who stood with attention and sympathy to wait upon me.
"We"ll make a selection and then try one pair on," he advised me.
And as I gave to him a fine description of the clothing I had purchased he brought forth in accord many wonderful boots and shoes for the riding and a walking and also for the dance. I had never observed that the shoes of men were of such an ugliness; but when one was upon my foot, in place of the shoe of much beauty which I discarded, both I and the young man had a fine laugh.
"_Mais_, they are of a great comfort," I further remarked. "And they feel about as did those of my brother, who is of a small frame."
"Well, if they are not right, send "em back and I"ll change "em," he answered with great interest.
After the exchange of much money between us, the young man went with me to the other kind old man of the white hair, and together they made places in the two bags for the shoes.
"Just seven hundred dollars all told, and the like of that outfit couldn"t be bought any other place of style in New York for less than a thousand, Miss," remarked to me the elderly clerk as he closed and made fast with keys the two bags. "Shall I send "em special?"
"I"ll thank you that you call a taxi for me, Monsieur," I answered, and as he had mentioned that Ritz-Carlton Hotel, in conversation earlier, that very wicked daredevil that resides within me awoke at attention with the large ears of great mischief. I felt in my pocket that there was still much gold, and the man from whom I had purchased the ticket to the State of Harpeth had a.s.sured me that the train did not depart until the hour of six in the evening.
"To the Hotel of the Ritz-Carlton," I commanded the man of the taxi as he made fast the door.
It then transpired that one hour from the time that the young Mademoiselle Grez, who had registered at that large hotel with all of her luggage from the steamer while by lies her father was represented as still engaged with the customs, entered her room, there emerged young Mr. Robert Carruthers, who, after paying his bill in his room had a hall boy send his bags on ahead of him to the Pennsylvania Station while he sauntered into the tea room. I have never again met with the wonderful dresses I left in that hotel room. I hope the poor and beautiful domestic, who a.s.sisted me in cutting my hair into a football shortness after the mode of a very beautiful woman dancer which she said girls of much foolishness in America have affected, was rewarded with them.
And as I stood in the center of the great room of conversation and lights and flowers and music I again became the frightened girl upon the dock of America and I felt as if I must flee, but at that exact moment I beheld my Mr. William Raines of Saint Louis and my Mr. Peter Scudder of Philadelphia seated at a table in a very choice corner and there was a vacant chair between them. Upon each other they were glaring and before I had a thought I started towards them to prevent the carnage that had threatened on the boat.
CHAPTER III
THAT MR. G. SLADE OF DETROIT
A number of moments in the rapid pa.s.sing of the next few months I have wondered what would have resulted if I had taken that vacant chair between very agreeable Mr. William Raines and very proper Mr. Peter Scudder so evidently reserved for the young, beautiful and charming Marquise of Grez and Bye. I have decided that in about the half of one hour young Mr. Robert Carruthers would have been extinct and the desired and beloved Marquise in her place between them sipping her tea while making false excuses for forgiveness. I did not take that seat but I accepted one which a _garcon_ offered me next to them and did regard them with both fear and wistfulness, also with an intense attention so that I might acquire as much as possible from them of an American gentleman"s manner.
"I suppose the dame"s fussing up for us to the limit, Peter," observed that Mr. Saint Louis while he emptied a gla.s.s of amber liquid and removed a cherry from its depths with his fingers and devoured it with the greatest relish. "Gee, but the genuine American c.o.c.ktail is one great drink! Have another, Peter. You"re so solemn that I am beginning to believe that _belle Marquise_ did put a dent in your old Quaker heart after all."
"There was something in that girl"s eyes as they followed us, William, that no c.o.c.ktail ever shaken could get out of my mind," made answer the very grave Mr. Peter Scudder of Philadelphia. "Do you suppose her Uncle got there or that anything happened? I wish I had waited with her."
"Well, either Uncle did arrive or we"ll see her in the Pa.s.sing Follies week after next, third from the left, in as little as Comstock allows.
When I"ve had a good look at bare arms my judgment connects mighty easily with bare--"
By that moment I had poised in my hand a very fragile cup of nicely steaming tea and it was a very natural thing that I should hurl its contents in the face of that Mr. William Raines of the country of Saint Louis.
_Voila_! What happened? Did I stay to fight the duel with that, what I know now to call a cad, and thus be put back into the person of the Marquise de Grez and Bye for a wicked Uncle to murder. I did not.
I placed upon the table two large pieces of money and I lost myself in the crowd of persons who had risen and gathered to sympathize with poor Mr. Saint Louis. No one had remarked my escape, I felt sure, as I had been very agile, but as I sauntered out into the entresol of the Hotel of Ritz-Carlton, to which I had given so great a shock in its stately tea room, a finger was laid upon my arm in its gray tweed coat. I turned and discovered a very fine and handsome woman standing beside me and in her hand she had a book of white paper with also a pencil.
"I was sitting just back of Willie Raines and I heard what he was saying about some woman, whom he and Peter Scudder had met on the boat over, not keeping her appointment with them. Peter is of the Philadelphia elect and n.o.body knows why he consorts with the gay Willie. I saw them come off the boat together this morning and I knew that the whole Scudder Meeting House would be in a glum over their being together. Would you mind telling me just why you soused your tea into his face? It would make a corking story for my morning edition.
Did you know them or did you know the lady or did you do it to be launcelotting?"
"I think it must have been for the third of those reasons, Madam, but I am not sure that I know the word you use," I answered with much caution.
"Launcelot, you know, the boy that was always fussing around over injured women, in Tennyson or somewhere, just for a love of "em that was always perfectly proper. Nice of him but not progressive. Say, do you mind sitting down in a quiet corner of the tea room and telling me all about it? Are you French or Russian or Brazilian, and do you believe in women, or is it just because you like "em that you threw the tea? I"ve got a suffrage article to do and I believe you"d make a good headline, with your militant tea throwing. Want to tell me all about it?"