Lord Stranleigh Abroad

Excerpt

I.—LORD STRANLEIGH ALL AT SEA.

A few minutes before noon on a hot summer day, Edmund Trevelyan walked up the gang-plank of the steamship, at that moment the largest Atlantic liner afloat. Exactly at the stroke of twelve she would leave Southampton for Cherbourg, then proceed across to Queenstown, and finally would make a bee-line west for New York. Trevelyan was costumed in rough tweed of subdued hue, set off by a cut so well-fitting and distinguished that it seemed likely the young man would be looked upon by connoisseurs of tailoring as the best-dressed passenger aboard. He was followed by Ponderby, his valet, whose usually expressionless face bore a look of dissatisfaction with his lot, as though he had been accustomed to wait upon the nobility, and was now doomed to service with a mere commoner. His lack of content, however, was caused by a dislike to ocean travel in the first place, and his general disapproval of America in the second. A country where all men are free and equal possessed no charms for Ponderby, who knew he had no equal, and was not going to demean himself by acknowledging the possibility of such.

Once on deck, his master turned to him and said—

“You will go, Ponderby, to my suite of rooms, and see that my luggage is placed where it should be, and also kindly satisfy yourself that none of it is missing.”

Ponderby bowed in a dignified manner, and obeyed without a word, while Trevelyan mounted the grand staircase, moving with an easy nonchalance suited to a day so inordinately hot. The prospect of an ocean voyage in such weather was in itself refreshing, and so prone is mankind to live in the present, and take no thought of the morrow, that Trevelyan had quite forgotten the cablegrams he read in the papers on his way down from London, to the effect that New York was on the grill, its inhabitants sweltering—sleeping on the house-tops, in the parks, on the beach at Coney Island, or wherever a breath of air could be had. On the upper deck his slow steps were arrested by an exclamation—

“Isn’t this Mr. Trevelyan?”

The man who made the enquiry wore the uniform of the ship’s company.

“Ah, doctor, I was thinking of you at this moment. I read in the papers that you had been promoted, and I said to myself: ‘After all, this is not an ungrateful world, when the most skilful and most popular medical officer on the Atlantic is thus appreciated.’”

“Ah, you put it delightfully, Trevelyan, but I confess I hesitated about adding, at my time of life, to the burden I carry.”

“Your time of life, doctor! Why you always make me feel an old man by comparison with yourself; yet you’ll find me skipping about the decks like a boy.”

“If you’ll take the right-hand seat at my table, I’ll keep an eye on you, and prevent you from skipping overboard,” laughed the doctor.

“Indeed, that was the boon I intended to crave.”

“Then the seat is yours, Trevelyan. By the way, I read in the newspapers that Evelyn Trevelyan is none other than Lord Stranleigh; but then, of course, you can never believe what you see in the press, can you?”

“Personally, I make no effort to do so....