II
Crossing the Atlantic

The most remarkable effect of a sea-trip is, to my mind, its wonderful influence for amiability. I hadn’t passed Sandy Hook before I felt an affable suavity settling down upon me like a February fog. I am at all times of a contented and peaceful nature, but this lethargic urbanity was a new sensation, and, as I opined it was but the beginning of a series of new sensations, I gave myself up to it with a satisfied feeling that my trip had really begun.

And yet I was haunted by a vague uneasiness that it hadn’t begun right. I had planned to be most methodical on this voyage. I had resolved that when I came aboard I would go first to my stateroom and unpack my steamer trunk, arrange my belongings neatly in their proper portholes and bunkers, find my reserved deck-chair, and attach to it my carefully tagged rug and pillow. Then I meant to take off and pack away my pretty travelling costume, and array myself in my “steamer clothes,” these having been selected with much care and thought in accordance with numerous and conflicting advices.

Whereas, instead of all this, I had hurriedly looked into my stateroom, and only noted that it was a tiny white box, piled high with luggage, part of which I recognized as my own, and the rest I assumed belonged to my as yet unknown room-mate. Then I had drifted out on deck, dropped into some chair, I know not whose; and, still in my trig tailor-made costume and feathered hat, I watched the coast line fade away and leave the sea and sky alone together.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I was receiving “first impressions.” How I hated the term! Every one I knew, who had ever crossed the ocean before I did, had said to me, “And you’ve never been over before? Oh, how I envy you your first impressions!”

As I realized that about seventy-nine people were even then consumed with a burning envy of these first impressions of mine, I somehow felt it incumbent upon me to justify their attitude by achieving the most intensely enviable impressions extant.

And yet, so prosaic are my mental processes, or else so contrary-minded is my subconscious self, that the impression that obtruded itself to the exclusion of all others was the somewhat obvious one that the sea air would soon spoil my feathers. While making up my mind to go at once to my stateroom and save my lovely plumes from their impending fate, I fell to wondering what my room-mate would be like. I knew nothing of her save that her name was Jane Sterling. This, though, was surely an indication of her personality, for notwithstanding the usual inappropriateness of cognomens, any one named Jane Sterling could not be otherwise than well born, well bred, and companionable, though a bit elderly.

I seemed to see Jane Sterling with a gaunt face, hooked nose, and grizzled hair, though I admitted to myself that she might be a fragile, porcelain-like little old maid.

This conflict of possibilities impelled me to go to my stateroom and make Jane Sterling’s acquaintance, and, incidentally, put away my best hat.

So I started, and on my way received another of my “first impressions.”

This was a remarkable feeling of at-homeness on the steamer. I had never been on an ocean liner before, yet I felt as though I had lived on one for years. The balancing of myself on the swaying stairs seemed to come naturally to me, and I felt that I should have missed the peculiar atmosphere of the dining-saloon had it not assailed my senses.

As I entered Stateroom D, I found Jane Sterling already there. But as the physical reality was so different from the lady of my imagination, I sat down on the edge of my white-spread berth and stared at her.

Sitting on the edge of the opposite berth, and staring back at me, was a small child with big eyes. She wore a stiff little frock of white piqué, and her brown hair was “bobbed” and tied up with an enormous white bow. Her brown eyes had a solemn gaze, and her little hands were clasped in her lap.

It was quite needless to ask her name, for Jane Sterling was plainly and unmistakably written all over her, and I marvelled that the name hadn’t told me at once what she looked like.

“How old are you, Jane?” I asked.

“Seven,” she replied, with a little sigh, as of the weight of years.

Her voice satisfied me. She was one of those unusual children, whom some speak of as “queer,” and others call “old-fashioned.”

But they are neither. They are distinctly a modern variety, and their unusualness lies in the fact that they have a sense of humor.

“And is this your first trip abroad?” I went on.

“No, my seventh,” said Jane, with a delicious little matter-of-fact air.

“Indeed! Well, this is the first time I have crossed, so I trust you will take pity on my ignorance, and instruct me as to what I should do.”

I said this with an intent to be sociable, and make, the child feel at ease, but no such effort was necessary.

“There is nothing to do diffelunt,” she said, with a bewitching smile. “You just do what you would in your own house.”

It was the first really good advice I had had concerning my steamer manners, and I put it away among my other first impressions for future use.

Then Jane’s mother appeared, and I learned that she occupied the next stateroom, and that she hoped Jane would not annoy me, and that she was glad I liked children, and that she had three, and that they crossed every year, and that if I wanted anything at all I was to ask her for it. Then she put a few polite questions to me, and duly envied me my first impressions, and returned to her other babies.

Jane proved a most delightful roommate, and, as she was never intrusive or troublesome, I felt that I had drawn a prize in the ship’s lottery.

The morning of the second day I rose with a determination to get to work. I had no intention of dawdling, and, moreover, I had much to do. In the first place, I wanted to get settled in my deck-chair, in that regulation bent-mummy position so often pictured in summer novels, and study my fellow-passengers. I had been told that nothing was so much fun as to study people on deck. Then I had many letters to write and many books to read. I wanted to learn how to compute the ship’s log, and how to talk casually of “knots.” After all these had been accomplished, I intended to plan out my itinerary for the summer. This I wanted to do after I was out of all danger of advice from friends at home and before I made the acquaintance of any one on board who might attempt to advise me.

So determined was I to plan my own trip that I would have been glad to get out on a desert island and wait there for the next steamer, rather than have any assistance in the matter of laying out my route.

Immediately after breakfast, therefore, arrayed in correct steamer costume, and carrying rug, pillow, paper-covered novel, veil, fur boa, and two magazines, I went to my deck-chair and prepared to camp out for the morning. As the deck steward was not about, I tried to arrange my much desired mummy effect myself. Technique seemed lacking in my efforts, and, slightly embarrassed at my inability to manage the refractory rug, I looked up to see Jane watching me.

“You mustn’t put the rug over you,” she explained, in her kind little way. “You must put yourself over the rug.”

At her advice I got out of the chair, and she spread the rug smoothly in it.

“Sit down,” she said, briefly, and I obeyed.

Cleverly, then, she flung up the sides and tucked in the corners, until the rug swathed me in true seventeenth-trip fashion. Jane proceeded to arrange my pillow and the other odds and ends of comfort. She disapproved, however, of my reading-matter.

“Magazines won’t stay open,” she observed, “and paper books won’t, eever.”

Jane’s few mispronunciations were among her chiefest charms.

“But it won’t matter,” she added cheerfully. “You won’t read, anyhow.”

This reminded me that I had no intention of reading, being there for the purpose of studying my fellow-passengers.

I was still obsessed by that strange sensation of inanition.

Although beatifically serene and abnormally good-natured, I felt an utter aversion to exertion of any kind, mental, moral, or physical. Even the thought of studying my fellow-travellers seemed a task too arduous to contemplate.

And so I sat there all the morning and not a fellow-traveller was studied.

“This won’t do,” I said to myself, severely, after luncheon. “Here you are, not a hint of sea-sickness, the day is perfect, you know how to adjust your rug, and all conditions are favorable. You must study your fellow-travellers.”

But the afternoon showed little improvement on the morning. As a result of desperate effort, I scrutinized one lady and decided to call her the Lady with the Green Bag.

It wasn’t a very clever characterization, but it was, at least, founded on fact.

Another I conscientiously contemplated, and finally dubbed her the Lady Who Isn’t an Actress. This was rather a negative description, but I based it on the neatness of her vanity-bag and the carelessness of her belt, and I am sure it was true.

The Clucking Mother was easily recognized, and a pink-cheeked and white-handed young man, who attempted to talk to me, I snubbed, and then to myself I designated him as Simple Simon.

I wasn’t really rude to him, and I fully intended to make acquaintances among the passengers later on; but I am methodical, and after I had all my other tasks attended to, I hoped to have two or three days left for social intercourse.

But after a time the chair next mine was left vacant, and then a laughing young girl seated herself in it.

Apparently it didn’t belong to her, and she sat down there with the express purpose of talking to me. My arduous study of my fellow-travellers had somewhat wearied me, and her sudden and uninvited appearance disturbed that serene calm which I had supposed unassailable, and so I angrily characterized her in my mind as a Bold-Faced Jig.

This name was so apt that it really pleased me, and I involuntarily smiled in appreciation of my appreciation of her.

So sympathetic was she (as I afterward discovered) that she smiled too, and then I couldn’t, in common decency, be rude to her. She chatted away, and before I knew it I was charmed with her. I didn’t change the name I had mentally bestowed on her, but, instead, I told her of it, and it delighted her beyond measure. I told her, too, how I intended to devote the next two days to planning my summer trip, then a day for writing letters, and after that I hoped to play bridge, or otherwise hobnob socially with certain people whom I had mentally selected for that purpose.

The Bold-Faced Jig laughed heartily at this.

“Haven’t you any idea where you’re going to travel?” she asked.

“Not the slightest.”

“Well, let me advise you – ”

“Oh, please don’t!” I cried. “I left my planning until now in order to get away from all advisers. I must decide for myself. I know just what I want, and I can’t bear to be interfered with.”

The B. – F. J. looked amazed at first, and then she laughed.

“All right,” she said. “Now listen, Miss Emmins. I think you’re delightful, and I’m going to help you all I can by not advising you. But if you’ve not finished your itinerary plans in two days, mayn’t I tell you then what I was going to advise?”

“Yes,” I said, with dignity and decision, “if you will keep away from me for two days, and do all you can to keep others away.”

She promised, and it was more of a task than it might seem, for as I sat in my deck-chair, or, oftener, at a table in the library, surrounded by Baedekers, time-tables, maps, guide-books, and Hare’s Walks in London, many of the socially inclined or curious-minded paused to make a tentative remark. My replies were so coolly polite that they rarely ventured on a second observation, but I soon discovered that my laughing friend had told her comrades what I was doing, and they awaited the result.

It is strange what trivialities will interest the idle minds of those who dawdle about in the library of an ocean steamer.

Jane would occasionally come and stand by me, saying wisely, “Are you still making your itinnery?”

When I said yes, she sighed and smiled and ran away, being desirous not to bother.

The first morning I engaged in this work, I read interestedly of picture-galleries and architectural specialties. That afternoon my interest waned, and I studied time-tables and statistical information. The next morning I grew sick of the whole performance and, bundling the books and maps away, I went out to my deck-chair, and idled away the hours in waking dreams that never were on sea or land.

That afternoon the Bold-Faced Jig approached me.

“It’s all over,” I said. “I’ve capitulated. I make no plans while I’m on this blessed ocean. It’s wicked to do anything at all but to do nothing.”

“And don’t you want my advice?” she asked, laughing still.

“I don’t care,” I answered. “You can voice your advice if you choose. I sha’n’t listen to it, much less follow it.”

Her girlish laughter rang out again. “That was my advice,” she said. “I was going to tell you not to plan any trip while you are at sea. Just enjoy the days as they come and go; don’t count them; don’t do anything at all but just be.

“I’m not through yet,” she went on. “Don’t write any letters or read any books. Don’t study human nature, and of all things don’t voluntarily make acquaintances. If they happen along, as I did, chat a bit if you choose, and when they pass on, forget them.”

And so I took advice after all. I made no plans, I made no abstruse diagnoses of human character, I made no acquaintances save such as casually happened of themselves. And the days passed in a sort of rose-colored haze, as indefinite as a foggy sunrise, and as satisfying as a painted nocturne of Whistler’s. And so, my first impressions of my first ocean crossing are indeed enviable.